the corner office

Saw this article at IOL, about a recent PW Botha speech given to punt the release of an interview-on-DVD that nobody's going to buy. The speech itself is the usual blather in which the old geezer is still big on Jesus and without being too blatant about it, still not so big on black people or the 'new' South Africa because, well, who knows or cares anymore.

The only part of it all which struck me as interesting, in light of the Official Conservative standpoint on the evil-but-elected-neener-neener thugs known as Hamas was this:

Asked during question time whether Mandela would have been released when he was if he, Botha, had still been in power, he said he had given Mandela an opportunity to leave jail.

"I told him to renounce violence, which he did not do. He kept himself in jail at that stage."

He said he had spoken to then British premier Margaret Thatcher and German chancellor Helmut Kohl on this issue.

"One of them told me, let him go and then put him in jail again. I said no, it is for him to decide whether he is prepared to renounce violence."

As I've said before, Hamas aren't the ANC, but it's instructive to yadda yadda, shades of grey and perception, and all that.