FW de Klerk Foundation urges Ramaphosa to be consistent in his message of peace - Christo van der Rheede

The FW de Klerk Foundation has welcomed the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Nihon Hidankyo, a grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors. This movement has been honoured for using the testimony of the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to advocate against the use of nuclear weapons ever again. Christo van der Rheede, the Executive Director of the Foundation, highlighted in an interview with Biznews that South Africa has a proud legacy of promoting peace, with Presidents Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk both receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for their roles in bringing peace to South Africa. Van der Rheede also noted that De Klerk took a significant step further by deciding to disarm South Africa, ensuring the country’s nuclear weapons were destroyed, making South Africa the first nation to take such action. He has called on President Cyril Ramaphosa to be consistent in his message: “Stand up and say enough is enough.” Van der Rheede argued that Ramaphosa cannot hold the Israelis accountable for events in the Middle East while remaining silent about the atrocities committed by Putin or Hamas. All those entities, he said, are out to destroy instead of engaging in dialogue, as Presidents Mandela and De Klerk had done.