I don’t fully agree with that.
He went on to assert that he was not justifying apartheid in any way whatsoever, saying:
But there is a difference between calling something a crime. Like genocide is a crime. Apartheid cannot be, for instance, compared with genocide. There was never a genocide.
He added that more black people were killed by other black people than by the National Party government. But in making this statement he conveniently chose to forget that a great deal of violence was fomented by the government’s security forces.
De Klerk was immediately engulfed in controversy. Condemnation of his statement came in thick and fast. Big names entered the fray, including former president Thabo Mbeki and Anglican Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu. The South African Council of Churches issued a statement as did the governing African National Congress (ANC). And the opposition party Economic Freedom Fighters called for his ejection from parliament when President Cyril Ramaphosa was waiting to deliver his State of Nation speech.
De Klerk’s foundation responded by dismissing the UN’s statement as a product of Soviet-style "agit-prop". This aroused yet more popular fury.
Such was the outcry that De Klerk opted for an immediate and humiliating retreat, issuing an abject apology, and insisting that he remained firmly committed to the politics of national reconciliation. His foundation also backtracked. It issued an apology for any anger and hurt caused. In its statement it said it agreed with the International Criminal Court’s definition of a crime against humanity as acts