It is a great pleasure for me to address the youth delegates at this Nobel Peace Laureate Summit in Mérida.
I have no doubt that one of the central challenges that your generation will confront will be the management of the enormous changes that you will experience during your lifetimes.
It is a pleasure to talk about South African history in a country with such a long and distinguished history – and at a school whose alumni have contributed so greatly to Britain and to the world.
It is, of course, impossible to understand the past 40 years in South Africa without understanding the preceding 400 years. Britain played a major role in the evolution of that history – as it did in the histories of so many countries throughout the world.
President Walesa, Ms Tibaijuka, Minister Mohammed Al Mutawa, Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen.
I welcome this opportunity to share my views on the importance of peaceful coexistence and religious tolerance with this distinguished audience. I would also like to commend the Oslo Centre and the Foundation for Dialogue and Peace for the role that they have played in organising this event.
It is a great pleasure for me to welcome you to this celebration of the 20thanniversary of the FW de Klerk Foundation in conjunction with the 25thanniversary of the New South Africa. I should like to share a few ideas about the process that led to the establishment of our constitutional democracy – and then to say a few words about the work of the Foundation.
I am really honoured to have been asked to speak on this occasion, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the FW de Klerk Foundation and the 25th anniversary of true democracy in South Africa. Apart from its founder, I would like to pay tribute to the contribution David Steward and Dr Theuns Eloff have made to the Foundation and the leading role it has played in defence of the Constitution.
It is a tragedy that lasted 100 days and saw at least one million lives lost. Men, women and children were slaughtered and crushed in a hate-filled frenzy. Ethnic identity (reflected on identity cards and appearance) was the basis of death by guns, machetes and farming implements by neighbour on neighbour, youth militias and gendarmerie. Moderate Hutus and Twas were collateral damage in a hate-filled campaign to rid the country of Tutsis.
I would like to welcome you to this – the FW de Klerk Foundation’s – 10th annual conference. We instituted the conferences in 2010 to mark the 20th anniversary of the commencement of our great national transformation process.
It is a great pleasure once again to address the Cape Town Press Club.
In the course of my speech I shall endeavour to revisit the remarkable process that culminated 25 years ago in the fundamental constitutional transformation of South Africa.
It is a great pleasure for me to address you today on the topic of South Africa’s transition to democracy. This is now my ninth visit to Taiwan and with each visit I have admired the manner in which your country has progressively consolidated and deepened your own democratic system.
