DIGNITARIES, family members and friends bade farewell to former president FW de Klerk at a state memorial service held in Die Groote Kerk in Cape Town.
Due to the Covid-19 regulations, attendance of the memorial service was limited to accredited persons only.
President Cyril Ramaphosa delivered the eulogy.
“Born into white privilege as well as power, raised into the ideology of racial superiority, committed to the defence of an abhorrent and inhumane system, FW de Klerk would come to play an important role in our democratic transition,” Ramaphosa said.
“On the day that our new constitution was adopted by the Constitutional Assembly, I said when I spoke as chairperson of the Constitutional Assembly that this document we are adopting is the real birth certificate of our nation, a nation of free and equal people.
De Klerk died on November 11, in Fresnaye, Cape Town, after his long battle with mesothelioma cancer.
He was laid to rest on November 21 at a private ceremony.
De Klerk served as deputy president under former president Nelson Mandela from 1994 to 1996, having played a role in South Africa’s transition to democracy in the 1990s.
IOL