President Emmerson Mnangagwa has been likened to FW de Klerk, the last president in apartheid South Africa. The comparison comes days after Klerk has told SABC that apartheid was not a crime against humanity. He said:
I don’t fully agree with that (it was evil and a crime against humanity), and I am not justifying apartheid in anyway. It did, and profusely apologised for that, but there’s a difference in calling something a crime, like genocide, is a crime, apartheid cannot be, and that is why I am saying this. It can never be compared with genocide, there was never genocide.
The remarks triggered outrage in South with some calling for the revocation of the Nobel Peace Prize that was awarded to Klerk in 1993. The prize was awarded to Klerk and Nelson Mandela for their work in ending apartheid.
A News Day article written by Paidamoyo Muzulu, a journalist, suggests that Mnangagwa and de Klerk are alike as he has not apologised for the 1980s Matebeleland massacres which resulted in the death and or disappearance of about 20 000 people. Muzulu said:
If Mnangagwa is sincere and contrite about the atrocities, he should release the reports into the public domain. Failure to do so proves that he is unrepentant just like De Klerk who denies that apartheid was a crime against humanity even after the United Nations decreed it so.
More: News Day