Former South African President P.W. Botha, the defiant face of white rule at the height of the anti-apartheid struggle, died at his home on Tuesday aged 90.

Widely known as "The Great Crocodile", Botha, who presided over some of the worst excesses of the apartheid era during the 1970s and 1980s, had lived quietly in Wilderness, about 350 km (220 miles) east of Cape Town, since being ousted in 1989.

"Botha died at home, peacefully," the South African Press Association quoted a member of his security staff, Frikkie Lucas, as saying. He had been taken to hospital briefly in October for what were described as routine tests.

Pieter Willem Botha, or P.W., saw South Africa spiral into anarchy under his watch as he kept a tough line against what he called the "total onslaught" of Communism and its partners in Africa's black liberation movements.

During his long political career, he softened some of the worst excesses of the white government. But he defied world opinion by quelling black unrest with draconian force.

His fall from grace in the National Party, led by the French and Dutch-descended Afrikaners who dominated South Africa for decades, mirrored the collapse of apartheid.

He was toppled in a cabinet rebellion in 1989 and replaced by F.W. de Klerk, who repudiated almost everything the finger-wagging hardliner had stood for, including the laws at the heart of the system of strict racial segregation.

De Klerk guided South Africa's white rulers through the delicate negotiations that ultimately brought the African National Congress (ANC), led by Nelson Mandela, to power in multi-racial elections in 1994.

Reuters