"While to many Mr Botha will remain a symbol of apartheid, we also remember him for the steps he took to pave the way towards the eventual peacefully negotiated settlement in our country."
Nelson Mandela, Mail & Guardian, 1 November 2006.
"Yesterday, one of the principal architects of the apartheid system, P.W.Botha, almost exactly four years after his infamous Rubicon speech of 1985, crashed out of the political life of our country, a failed and embittered politician of racism. … Steeped in the ideology and policies of racism and racial domination, he dedicated his life to the construction of the apartheid system and its defence at all costs. In pursuit of these goals, he has brought death and destruction to millions of people in South Africa and the rest of the region of Southern Africa, through a systematic campaign of brutal repression, aggression and state terrorism. … The fall of Botha must, as a result of unrelenting struggle, signify the beginning of the end of the criminal system of apartheid and an uninterrupted advance towards a non-racial democracy in South Africa."
Alfred Nzo, ANC Secretary General, 15 August 1989, statement on the resignation of PW Botha as State President.
"Posturing like a pathetic dictator in the mould of his predecessor and mentor, whose fascist rule was brought to an end 40 years ago, P.W. Botha stood last night pretending that he can withstand and defeat all the forces at home and abroad that are engaged in struggle to end the system of white minority domination. … He has flung an insult in the face of his best friends internationally, telling them in no uncertain terms that he has no use for their advice. Those who have tied themselves to the policy of so-called constructive engagement are now reaping the fruits of a policy which has encouraged the obduracy and arrogance of the apartheid regime. … The imperatives of the apartheid system compel the Pretoria regime to march on blindly to its own downfall, leaving a scorched earth in its trail. We who are its victims are ready to make any and all sacrifices to achieve justice and democracy based on the principle of one man, one vote in a unitary South Africa. South Africa has crossed her Rubicon."
Oliver Tambo, response to PW Botha’s Rubicon speech, 16 August 1985.
"Although he was the supreme leader of a regional superpower, PW Botha ironically had the mind of an embittered Third World dictator seeking foreign help against local enemies."
Chester Crocker, American politician, as quoted in Dictionary of South African Quotations, Jennifer Crwys-Williams, Penguin Books, p285.
"He was a cantankerous old bastard, to be sure, but he’d come a long way against the grain, considering that he’d learned his ideological chops from the master, DF Malan."
Rian Malan, writer, as quoted in Dictionary of South African Quotations, Jennifer Crwys-Williams, Penguin Books, p285.
"If he was female, he would arrive in Parliament on a broomstick."
Helen Suzman, as quoted in Dictionary of South African Quotations, Jennifer Crwys-Williams, Penguin Books, p285.
"The spectacle of a doddering old geriatric being hauled before the Truth Commission just a block away from the Parliament where he once ruled the roost, will do South Africa’s image of rainbows and “Shosholoza” no good. But those who’ve listened to the victims’ testimonies and the perpetrators’ amnesty hearings will know that in the mid-1980s when P.W. Botha was at the peak of his power, Apartheid rule acquired its coldest, its most brutal and murderous edge."
Antjie Krog, Country of My Skull, Random House, p267.
"I wrote the Rubicon part of Mr Botha’s speech. He kept the Rubicon line, but removed everything I put before it – the unbanning of the ANC and the release of Nelson Mandela."
Pik Botha, TRC Testimony, as quoted in Antjie Krog, Country of My Skull, Random House, p267.
