In the end it came, his last attempt at an apology for apartheid, released within hours of his death on 11 November.
In an eerie video, a frail Frederik Willem de Klerk, seated in front of painting of an African woman clutching red flowers, looks at the camera and struggles to make his peace: “I, without qualification. apologise for the pain and the hurt and indignity and the damage that apartheid has done to black, brown and Indians in South Africa. I do so not only in my capacity as the former leader of the National Party but also as an individual.”
