Frederick Van Zyl Slabbert, white who helped South Africa chart way out of apartheid, dies

White SAfrican anti-apartheid activist dies

JOHANNESBURG — A former South African legislator who helped chart a way out of apartheid by leading fellow whites into talks with exiled black leaders has died.

Frederik Van Zyl Slabbert’s Institute for Democracy in Africa, known as Idasa, says he died Friday. He was 70.

In 1987, Slabbert led a delegation of white South Africans to Senegal to meet the African National Congress — which was then banned in South Africa, but now is the governing party.

The white government labeled his group traitors. President Jacob Zuma says he will be remembered for showing “courage and foresight” by going to Senegal.

The opposition Democratic Alliance says he played a “leading role in opposing apartheid and facilitating South Africa’s transition to democracy.”