Prince of Asturias Awards 1981–2014. Speeches

4 O viedo | C ampoamor T heatre | 31 st O ctober 1992 Since its beginnings, the history of South Africa has been characterized by a search on the part of the different peoples living in this southernmost part of Africa for a just and lasting solution to the problem of peaceful coexistence. For that reason, periods of intense warring conflicts have been interspersed with others in which different political formulas were adopted with the hope of bringing peace and lasting prosperity to this troubled country. Nevertheless, neither unification, colonialism nor the other solutions employed were successful, mainly because all of them suffered from an essential defect: none managed to establish a democracy for all South Africans. That is the failure which the South African Government has been trying to remedy since 1990. The road to success is hard, as has been clearly demonstrated over the last three years. However, President de Klerk is absolutely determined to continue on the path of reform and aspires to succeed in this respect, as he and other leaders count on the support of the majority of the people of his country in this endeavour. Frederich G. Conradie, on behalf of Frederick W. de Klerk — Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation 1992 Frederick W. de Klerk was President of the South African Republic from 1989 to 1994. — Excerpt from the speech given on the occasion of receiving the Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation on 31/10/1992.