The situation in Northern Ireland required "genuine leadership on all sides", Prof Kader Asmal said yesterday. The South African Minister and former anti-apartheid activist was speaking at Dublin Airport after his arrival from Cape Town with his wife, Louise. There was now an enormous duty on leaders to show "generosity of spirit". Compromise was necessary and was not a sign of weakness, he added.
Prof Asmal, South Africa's Minister for Water Affairs and Forestry, is on an official visit to Ireland to receive an Honorary Doctorate in Laws from Trinity College on Friday. He will pay a courtesy call on the President, Mrs McAleese, and the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, tomorrow.
Prof Asmal said he could not say he was "exhilarated" to be in Ireland because of the looming situation at Drumcree. However, he hoped that the political leaders would show the kind of response necessary to reach an accommodation.
"You are nowhere near a larger settlement in Ireland", he said. "There is an enormous duty on leaders to show generosity. This is part of a peace treaty. If you have the three strands, you must make them work.
"You have this huge majority in the referendum and the Assembly elections. Now it requires genuine leadership on all sides. In South Africa we know you have to make enormous concessions. Compromise is not a sign of weakness. It is necessary to bring about the result you want, not necessarily the solution, but the result you want."
In South Africa they had encountered "enormous problems with transition" and the situation was inevitably volatile and difficult. "But the most important thing is we have dealt with and finished with political violence. We have problems of crime and lawlessness. Poverty is the root of most crime. We have a civilian police force and the overwhelming majority are not qualified. Because everything was skewed by racism, 80 per cent of police stations were in white areas and 80 per cent of convictions were secured through confessions."
However, in the new South Africa, censorship had been removed; there was complete religious freedom; liberal abortion laws were in place and society was "healthy". In spite of the inequalities, the achievements of the last four years had been "remarkable".
Prof Asmal added: "We have an enormously abnormal society. But I am exhilarated for the future."