President Chandrika Kumaratunga today participated in a seminar in Colombo on Ethnic Reconciliation and Peace.

Two key players during South Africa‘s negotiations towards majority rule, Roelof Meyer and Ebrahim Ismail Ebrahim addressed the Seminar.

During the difficult negotiations in South Africa more than 20 political parties had been included in the negotiating process, Meyer said. Speaking to a very distinguished audience, which included academics, human rights activists and parliamentarians, Meyer said that if there was no consensus, they had evolved a system of ‘sufficient consensus‘.

His personal relations with the African National Congress’ negotiator Cyril Ramaphosa arguably salvaged the peace process in its darkest days. Questioned on his views of third party facilitation/mediation, he said "In our case we were of the opinion that we would be better able to establish trust among ourselves." He also credited civil society with a major role in taking the peace concept forward.

Ebrahim who spent time in prison for his activities in the then banned African National Congress said that the ANC Nelson Mandela insisted on two issues, one was ‘Majority rule in a unitary state‘ and ‘secondly’, he said we must address the fears and concerns of the white people‘.

Senior Adviser to the President and former Minister of Foreign Affairs Lakshman Kadirgamar chaired the seminar which was organised in association with the Sri Lanka Office of the Berghof Foundation for Conflict Studies.