De Klerk hails apartheid creators

CAPE TOWN (AFP) - President F W de Klerk yesterday defended South Africa's engineers of apartheid, Hendrik Verwoerd and J G Strijdom, as 'men of integrity'. In a parliamentary debate he said they had 'acted in the public interest during their time'.

Verwoerd, prime minister from 1958 until his assassination in 1966, was the principal architect of apartheid, and was responsible for institutionalising the racist policy. Strijdom, his predecessor, was prime minister in 1954 and laid the foundations for institutionalised apartheid.