STORY HIGHLIGHTS
F.W. de Klerk drew criticism for not fully repudiating the concept of 
He clarifies his remarks Wednesday, saying he has no belief in segregation
His foundations said last week that the original comments were taken out of context
Many have waited for de Klerk to renounce the brutal era of South Africa's history

(CNN) -- Under fire for his comments on apartheid, former South African President F.W. de Klerk clarified his position again Wednesday, saying that he repudiates the system of racial segregation as unacceptable.

"I have no residual belief in, or attachment to, separate development," de Klerk told CNN's Christiane Amanpour.

"Whatever the intentions may have been, I concluded many years ago that apartheid had failed, that it was unacceptable and offensive, and that it had resulted in manifest injustice."

Many South Africans say they have waited for their former president, who helped dismantle apartheid and give rise to Nelson Mandela's presidency, to renounce the brutal period of their nation's history.

CNN offered that opportunity to de Klerk last week.

In the original CNN interview, de Klerk would not back off his belief in the validity of the concept of "separate but equal" nation states.

"I'm offering you the opportunity as the person who helped dismantle apartheid to say whether or not you believed that it was also morally repugnant, today, in retrospect," Amanpour said.

De Klerk repudiated the effects of apartheid, but not the concept.

"I can only say that in a qualified way," de Klerk said. "In as much as it trampled human rights, it was -- and remains, and that I've said also publicly -- morally indefensible. There were many aspects which are morally indefensible."

The qualified statement drew criticism on Twitter and in South African and international media.

"I don't apologize for saying that what drove me as a young man, before I decided we need to embrace a new vision, was a quest to bring justice for black South Africans in a way which would not -- that's what I believed then -- destroy the justice to which my people were entitled," de Klerk said last week on CNN. "My people, whose self-determination (was) taken away by colonial power in the Anglo-Boer War."

And De Klerk's foundation said the former president's initial remarks on CNN had been taken out of context.

"The F.W. de Klerk Foundation regrets that the comments that F.W, de Klerk made in his recent interview with Christiane Amanpour of CNN have been taken so unfairly out of context," the foundation said in a statement last Friday.

"The question that she asked related to the policies that he had supported when he was a young man -- and his reply centered on his view that, though idealistic at the time, they had resulted in the unacceptable injustices of apartheid," the foundation said.

De Klerk, 76, shared the 1933 Nobel Peace Prize with Mandela, 93, for their efforts to abolish apartheid. Following the remarks, critics have called for de Klerk to be stripped of the honor.

De Klerk told CNN that he and Mandela have been "close friends."

"Not the closest in the sense that we see each other once a week," he said. "But he's been in my home as a guest. I've been in his home as a guest. When I go to Johannesburg, my wife and I will have tea with him and Graca, his wife.

"There is no animosity left between us," he said.

However, his opinion on the African National Congress, South Africa's governing party once led by Mandela, was less kind.

The ANC, de Klerk said, has wielded too much power and its leaders have lost their "moral compass."

This week Jackson paid South Africa another visit

When Reverend Jesse Jackson, one of America’s leading civil rights leaders, marched alongside exiled ANC President Oliver Tambo in London’s Trafalgar Square on November 2, 1985, South Africa was a global pariah.

The townships back then were restive and Nelson Mandela was still in prison.

The 120 000-strong demonstration marked one of a series of events mounted by the anti-apartheid movemement in a push to bring the segregationist system to its knees.

Little did Jackson know that by 2010 South Africa would have marked its 16-year anniversary as a democratic state and played host to a spectacular World Cup, the first to be held on African soil.

Jackson, 69, has made countless trips to South Africa and he remains close to the country.

Apartheid was no different to the policies of racial discrimination and other violations that bedevilled black people in America, leading to the emergence of the US civil rights movement in the 1960s in which Jackson featured prominently and stood alongside the likes of Dr Martin Lurther King Jr.

This week Jackson paid South Africa another visit.

Among his engagements was delivering a keynote address to the annual investment conference of the Black Securities and Investment Professionals (ABSIP) in Johannesburg last Wednesday.

On Saturday he was scheduled to speak in Groutville, north of Durban, home of Chief Albert Luthuli, the president-general of the ANC from December 1952 until his death in 1967, and the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1960.

Jackson used his ABSIP speech to celebrate some of the country’s achievements since 1994, but also took time to showcase its current shortcomings, one of which is growing inequality.

While every South African now had the right to vote, he said there remained formidable obstacles to economic opportunity for a majority of South Africans. “We are free today but we are not equal,” said Jackson.

“Luthuli marched for freedom, (President Jacob) Zuma must fight for equality,” added Jackson.

He suggested that black people must come together and apply a global strategy to deal with global banks and leverage their strengths.

“Black groups need to buy shares in large multinational corporations so that they can attend global banking group shareholder meetings to raise issues.”

He said the management of these companies needed to be asked who they used for their professional and other services.

As an agitator for social change you would expect him to be some sort of fire spitting preacher but, if anything, his speech at ABSIP showed that Jackson is more nuanced and strategic.

In December 1996 he formed the Rainbow PUSH Coalition (RPC), whose mission is to protect, defend and gain civil rights by leveling the economic and educational playing fields, and to promote peace and justice around the world.

Jackson said that there was still apartheid in finance, healthcare, education, trade and shipping among other sectors.

“We are free, but we aren’t equal. Who manages the pension funds? This is another dimension of our struggle,” said Jackson.

He told ABSIP members that everyone had to understand that: “Every bank and shopping centre is for sale, if you have the money”.

He urged black people to come together and leverage their strength to gain access to strategic economic spheres.

“There’s more to the car than the ride,” entoned Jackson, wondering why black people were not involved in the production of the many thousands of parts that constitute a car – from the alternator system to the windshield.

He made the same point about all industry sectors in South Africa.

“There’s more in the Coke bottle than the taste.” - Weekend Argus