P. W. Botha Quotes

Unfortunately [South Africa] has been badly repaid for her loyalty because the West has expelled her from the family circle while befriending the most dictatorial regimes on Earth.

Our enemies latched unto the word "apartheid" and in a very sly manner transformed it into the strongest weapon in the onslaught against freedom and civilization in our country.

South Africa is not a jellyfish and is in many respects a swordfish.

Knowing [Mandela] will start up with violence again, I, as a responsible head of state, must release him so that he can carry on with his violence, and then arrest him? What a nonsensical argument.

Lord Milner had, in the forced Peace of Vereeniging ensured that there was to be no franchise for black people after the introduction of self-government – which was never intended. It was only after half a century that an Afrikaner government started doing something about black rights.

I believe we are today crossing the Rubicon, Mr Chairman. In South Africa there can be no turning back. I have a manifesto for the future of our country and we must engage in positive action in the months and years that lie ahead.

I am tired of constantly hearing how guilty the Afrikaner and the National Party are and the time has come that this myth be crushed.

The separation of races happened long before the Nationalist Government. God separated the races.

We do not force people to move to new homes, we coerce them. [Some believe he meant to say "convince"]

The Republic of South Africa has a new formula under the National Party's leadership: black nations can get freedom without firing shots or revolution.

There is only one element that can break the Afrikaner … and that is the Afrikaner himself.

We dare not see ourselves as a chosen people. We are called people - called to a particular task, just as every nation is a called people.

We do not want chaos in South Africa.

I have come to the realisation and conviction that the struggle in South Africa is not between White, Black and Brown, but between Christian civilized standards and the powers of chaos.

We are a strong country in a rather sick world. … Our problems are not so much racial as radicals wish to make them.