The prize clearly doesn’t fit the man, says Mpofu while outlining plan to revoke De Klerk’s Peace Prize
The advocate claims the country had given the former president a chance but his actions proved that he did not see the error of his ways.
Advocate Dali Mpofu. Image: Moeletsi Mabe /The Times
As former president FW de Klerk faces condemnation over his statements regarding apartheid, advocate Dali Mpofu is continuing with his campaign to have the former apartheid president stripped of his Nobel Peace Prize.
Mpofu, a former EFF chairperson, has called on South Africans to rally and come on board in a campaign that might have De Klerk stripped of his prize.
Mpofu said during an interview on Tuesday morning that apartheid denialism was the propagation of the brutality and violence of apartheid.
“How can you be propagating violence with one side of your mouth and be a peacemaker with another side of the same mouth? It’s that simple.
“I don’t think that there is any debate about the merits of taking the [Nobel Peace] Prize away, because the prize clearly doesn’t fit the man.
“The case of it being taken away is self-evident.
“I’ve never heard of reconciliation based on lies, that’s why it was called the truth and reconciliation.”
South Africans had given De Klerk a chance, although his actions have “proven now that he did not see the error of his ways for the past 30 years”.
“For those that he thought he may have deserved the prize – wrongly so in my opinion – by now, it’s beyond any doubt that he didn’t deserve it.”
Admitting that he too was a victim of apartheid, he said the implications of De Klerk’s statements were quite devastating.
“It is clear that De Klerk and those that support him have never had any case for reconciliation.
“If we botched up the reconciliation project, we can do it again. This time by doing it honestly and putting the ugly truth of apartheid on the table.”
In outlining his plan to have De Klerk stripped of the prize, Mpofu said the initial phase was an online campaign to gauge how many people were interested in the campaign.
“We expected 10,000 retweets, we are at 20,000.”
Phase two would be to launch a signature campaign from those across the political and religious spectrum who think De Klerk must be stripped of the prize.
Phase three is to approach the Nobel Foundation and to present evidence and a well-argued case on why the prize should be withdrawn.
Mpofu reiterated that he had looked at the prospect of success and was willing to take up the challenge.
“We’ve had a debate and we believe in making it happen.
“On a practical level, it starts with the truth. We need a change of heart. It happened to us where some of us carried passes.”
Those things happened, he said while highlighting that he was tortured by old people while sitting in a prison cell.
“De Klerk cannot tell me how I must deal with the pain. The perpetrator must acknowledge that it’s wrong.”
Asked if this was in response to the EFF’s reaction to De Klerk’s statement, Mpofu responded that it did not matter who was highlighting an injustice.
He said citizens had a role to revolt against being humiliated and insulted by De Klerk.
Mpofu, alongside the EFF, would make history if successful in having the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to De Klerk revoked.
It hasn’t been done before, as there is no provision for this in the Nobel Foundation’s rules, however, Mpofu reiterates that the rules were man-made and could be challenged.
“I’m told the withdrawal of a Nobel Peace Prize has never been done before. That is EXACTLY why we are got to [do] it! [Let’s] go! #BringBackThePrize,” he said.
De Klerk, 83, and late former president Nelson Mandela were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 “for their work for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime, and for laying the foundations for a new democratic South Africa”.
De Klerk received the joint award for his participation in the peace process, the Nobel Foundation said on its website.
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