Interviews with Max du Preez

I think sanctions were very important because it isolated the economy, more financial sanctions, because not selling arms to South Africa didn’t work because they had—it stimulated them to start their own arms industry. Not selling oil stimulated them to start oil from coal process. But financial sanctions, the decisions in ’88 and ’89 of great financial institutions to refuse to roll over the debt of the South African economy, those were absolutely devastating, absolutely devastating. So in broad terms, yes, I think hugely successful, and I think in hindsight people hated one man more because of that, more than anybody else, and that was Desmond Tutu, because he was a priest. He was inside the country. He wasn’t in the ANC [African National Congress].

He wasn’t in exile. And he became the internal strongest voice to say, “Yes, we want sanctions,” and he was listened to in the world because he was the pastor to the nation. He was not a radical. He was not ANC. He was not a communist. And I think he has a strong feeling of satisfaction that that was the right way and that he—him coming out in favor of sanctions swayed a whole lot of people. Because remember, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were dead-set against sanctions, and in the end this economy was bankrupt.

[Archbishop Desmond Tutu (1931 – ) was the first black Archbishop of Capetown in the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, serving from 1986 – 1996. He is a human rights advocate and was a leading anti-apartheid activist. Tutu won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984. The African National Congress (ANC) is a political party that served as the most prominent resistance movement against South Africa’s apartheid system, at times resorting to violence through its military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe. It was officially banned by the South African government from 1960 to 1990. As apartheid collapsed, the ANC’s leader, Nelson Mandela, was elected President of South Africa in 1994 and established a democratic government. Ronald Reagan (1911 – 2004) was the 40th President of the United States, serving from 1981 to 1989. Margaret Thatcher (1925 – 2013) served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979-1990]

Max du Preez is a South African journalist, author and documentary filmmaker. He was an anti-apartheid journalist who worked to expose government repression.

Born in 1951, Max du Preez grew up in Kroonstad, South Africa. Unlike many Afrikaners, descendants of Dutch colonial settlers who largely supported the apartheid government, his parents were open-minded toward integration of whites and non-whites.

After attending Stellenbosch University, an Afrikaner institution, du Preez began a career in journalism writing for Afrikaans and English language newspapers supportive of the apartheid government. Du Preez quickly became disenchanted by the South African media’s blatant political bias and abandoned his work in the mainstream media.

Du Preez became involved with anti-apartheid movements like the United Democratic Front. In 1988, he founded Vrye Weekblad, the first Afrikaans-language, anti-apartheid newspaper that offered alternative policy perspectives from mainstream media and was critical of the government. The government attempted to stifle the paper financially and legally by levying exorbitant registration fees and charging it with various infractions. In 1990, a member of the Civil Cooperation Bureau, a pro-apartheid group, bombed Vrye Weekblad’s headquarters. Vrye Weekblad survived, however, until 1994 when the government’s financial pressure finally forced its closure. Ironically, apartheid collapsed and South Africa transitioned to democracy later that same year.

During the transition, du Preez covered the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission on television, publicizing the body’s efforts to ease tension and promote a unified, post-apartheid South Africa.

Today, Du Preez remains a prominent South African columnist and media personality. He has received several awards including the Nat Nakasa Award for Courageous Journalism and been named the Yale Globalist International Journalist.