Some 400 mourners converged in the small town of George on Wednesday, 8 November 2006, for the funeral of South African apartheid-era leader PW Botha.
Nicknamed 'Die Groot Krokodil' (The Great Crocodile), for his staunch defiance of the apartheid in the face of international sanctions and worldwide criticism, former colleagues and family members described Botha as a "precise" and "disciplined" man.
And this was also clear from the strict instructions he left about his funeral, which stipulated that he should be buried at the Dutch Reformed Mother Church in the coastal Western Cape town, and laid to rest next to his first wife Elize. Botha also wanted Psalm 23 to be read, followed by a short prayer, and didn't want a state funeral but a private service instead.
The Botha family declined an offer of a state funeral from then President Thabo Mbeki, who ordered flags to be flown at half-mast at government buildings until after the burial. Mbeki also led a government delegation to the funeral service and said that his attendance was in the interest of pursuing national reconciliation and nation building.
These decisions to honour Botha drew strong criticism from some, who said the former president remained unapologetic about the state-sanctioned murders and other crimes committed by his regime.
After the fall of apartheid, Botha - who ruled over the country from 1978 to 1989 – refused a call to testify at the 1996 hearing of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He also refused to apologise for apartheid and, during a 2006 interview to mark his 90th birthday in January, suggested that he had no regrets in the way he governed the country.
He did, however, deny ever holding the view that black South Africans are inferior to whites and seemingly implied that his government had followed the policies of apartheid by default, after inheriting them from the British colonial administration.
Botha died from a heart attack at the age of 90, at his home in Wilderness on 31 October 2006.