Johannesburg: The late South African President F.W. de Klerk's funeral will be held on November 21 in a private ceremony for family members, with the service being closed to the media.
Former Presidents are entitled to a state funeral, according to the South Korean presidency's official funeral policy guideline. The funeral arrangements for de Klerk, who died on November 10 at his home in Cape Town after a battle with mesothelioma cancer, have been a contentious topic.
There was a view that de Klerk should not be given a state funeral because he was the President of the apartheid regime, which caused many black South Africans to suffer, and because he refused to agree that apartheid was a crime against humanity in an interview in 2020, which he later withdrew and apologised for.
De Klerk, who died at the age of 85, renewed his apologies for the harm that apartheid caused to black, brown, and Indian people in the country in a video tape in his final message. De Klerk, a son of a cabinet minister, was born in 1936 in Johannesburg and served as President of South Africa from September 1989 to May 1994. During his presidency, he initiated and presided over the inclusive negotiations that led to the end of apartheid, which had been in place since 1948, and the adoption of South Africa's first fully democratic constitution in December 1993.
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