The FW de Klerk Foundation takes pleasure in presenting its annual Human Rights Report Card indicating where, in our opinion, South Africa has been making progress with regard to human rights and where it has been regressing.
2019 is racing to a close and one can – without fear of contradiction – say that Eskom’s Stage 6 load-shedding was the low point of President Ramaphosa’s year. It was also clear when he delivered his statement after meeting with the Eskom Board and management. And speaking of poor timing: on Monday, December 9, he wrote in his weekly newsletter to the nation about the miracle of Medupi and how impressive and imposing it is… In addition, we all remember his assurance at the beginning of the year that load-shedding at Eskom was something of the past; a promise repeated only a few months ago by Deputy President David Mabuza. And of course, many also remember that when President Ramaphosa was still Deputy President, he was in charge of the task team responsible for repairing State-owned entities (SOEs).
Ladies and gentlemen, if I may very briefly share with you the take-away in conclusion. FW de Klerk gave me two. The one is there is nothing wrong with the Constitution. If the chefs ruin the meal, don’t blame the recipe, and Thuli made the same point. Secondly, that he is cautiously optimistic and supportive of what Cyril Ramaphosa is trying to do.
This most famous line in John Donne’s 1624 oeuvre, Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, best sum up what may have been an ideal following the transition to democracy in South Africa in 1994.
The Centre for Constitutional Rights (CFCR) launched its flagship publication, the Human Rights Report Card, on 17 March 2017. The launch event was hosted in
On 2 February 1990 Mr De Klerk stood up in Parliament to make a speech. It should have been an ordinary speech, it should have been a runof-the-mill speech in which President De Klerk would be espousing the policies of the National Party. But instead, in that speech he turned on its head 500 years of history.
The conference publication contains welcoming remarks by Dave Steward of the FW de Klerk Foundation, as well as Dr Holger Dix, of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS). Keynote speeches were delivered by: Dr Mathews Phosa, Rhoda Kadalie, Flip Buys, Justice Albie Sachs, Dr Fernand de Varennes and former President FW de Klerk.
#WeAreHere. Yes we are. With the suspension of the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates the decision was taken not to allow the conversation to be silenced in South Africa. The event has been renamed, rebranded and reignited. Now known as the Global Youth Peace Indaba the conversations will most definitely be happening from 13 – 15 October, right here in South Africa!
This publication is a compendium of speeches presented at the Foundation’s annual conference in 2014.
Speakers included: Former President FW de Klerk; Prof Francois Venter (Research Fellow and former Dean of the Faculty of Law, NWU); Dr Theuns Eloff (Vice Chancellor, NWU); Herman Mashaba (Chairman, Free Market Foundation and Chairman, Lephatsi Investments); Colin Coleman (Partner, Managing Director, and Head Investment Banking Division, Sub Saharan Africa, Goldman Sachs).
