Apartheid

Question 1

Who replaced who as President of South Africa on 15th August 1989?

Answer 1

F.W. de Klerk replaced P.W. Botha as leader of the National Party and President of South Africa.

Question 2

How much younger was de Klerk than Botha?

Answer 2

At 53, de Klerk was 20 years younger than his predecessor.

Question 3

What happened in 1989 that provided a dramatic shift of the apartheid’s global context?

Answer 3

Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe, and the anti-communist sentiments that drove Apartheid policy dissipated, leaving a system that was based nakedly on racial supremacy.

Question 4

Dominique Lapierre on South Africa in the early 1980s;

Answer 4

“The effects of the UN embargo on military purchases, the disastrous consequences of international sanctions and the boycott of South African goods, economic recession, drought, racial violence – the future of white South Africa looked grim indeed.”

Question 5

Botha to Mandela on the release of political prisoners

Answer 5

That is out of the question ‘those men are still enemies of the people God has chose to reign over Africa’

Question 6

What did De Klerk announce in 1990?

Answer 6

‘The time for negotiations has arrived’.

Question 7

What is significant about 1990?

Answer 7

The end of apartheid.

Question 8

Results of economic boycotts;

Answer 8

The price of gold had fallen 50%.
The economy was suffering severe inflation.
External debt of $21 Billion by 1989