born Feb. 19, 1921, Piketburg, S.Af.
died April 22, 1993, Cape Town
South African politician.
A preacher in the Dutch Reformed Church (1946–60), he later achieved high office in the apartheid . In 1976 his insistence that black children be taught Afrikaans lead to the Soweto uprising. In 1982 he left the National Party to form the Conservative Party, which opposed {{link=de Klerk, Frederik Willem">F.W. de Klerk 's decision to end apartheid. He came to support the idea of a separate white homeland within South Africa.