"President P.W. Botha’s notorious “Rubicon” speech on 15 August 1985 at the National Party Congress in Durban was probably one of the most significant speeches in the history of South Africa. It was supposed to break the political and military deadlock between the apartheid government and the banned liberation movements, notably the ANC. Botha was widely expected to announce new policies that could possibly have ended the political conflict in the country. However, that did not happen. Instead the speech was a total fiasco. ...the South African government and P.W. Botha were not ready for such policy breakthrough announcements and had never planned to make them."
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Presidents of South AfricaPeople of the Cold WarPrime Ministers of South AfricaDefence ministers of South AfricaPerpetrators of political repression in apartheid-era South Africa
Original Language: English
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Sources
Fanie Cloete in Resolving P.W. Botha’s 1985 Rubicon riddle, Historia 64 (2), November 2019, pp. 132‐155.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/P._W._Botha
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P. W. Botha
Pieter Willem Botha (January 12, 1916 – October 31, 2006), commonly known as "PW", was the prime minister of South Africa from 1978 to 1984 and the first executive state president from 1984 to 1989.
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