South Africa's De Klerk suffers new lung infection

CAPE TOWN, June 13 (Reuters) F W de Klerk, the last president of white-ruled South Africa, remains in intensive care on a ventilator in a Cape Town hospital after developing a new lung infection, his spokesman today said.

De Klerk, 70, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Nelson Mandela in 1993 for his efforts to end apartheid and establish a multi-racial democracy, developed respiratory problems last week after a cancer operation.

''Yesterday (Monday) evening Mr De Klerk developed an infection in his lungs and is...breathing with the help of the ventilator,'' spokesman Dave Steward said in a statement.

Doctors at Cape Town's Panorama Medi-Clinic put him on a ventilator last Wednesday after he had difficulty breathing following an operation earlier this month to remove a malignant tumour from his colon.

Steward said doctors planned to conduct a tracheotomy on Tuesday so that the ventilator pipe can be introduced directly into his throat to make breathing easier.

''He will remain on the ventilator until such time as doctors are satisfied with his condition,'' he said, adding that he wrongly stated on Monday that De Klerk had been taken off the ventilator.

De Klerk, a former heavy smoker, ousted hardliner P W Botha in 1989 and stunned the world months later with a sweeping repudiation of the apartheid racial segregation policies of his National Party.

He lifted a 30-year-old ban on Mandela's African National Congress (ANC) and freed Mandela from prison, paving the way for a peaceful transition to non-racial democracy.

De Klerk served as deputy president under Mandela after the ANC won the country's first all-race vote in 1994. He retired from active politics in 1997.

Reuters SY GC2133