ALL the obstacles confronting the peace process are capable of being overcome, but a solution will require political leadership and risk taking, a South African government minister has advised.
Mr Sr Mac Maharaj of the African National Congress (ANC), who with two other members of the South African parliament was visiting Belfast yesterday, said all the difficulties facing the peace process could be resolved through negotiation.
It is a question of developing the political will. That demands leaders who are prepared to stray beyond where their constituency stands, and then bring that constituency along afterwards. That is emerging slowly said Mr Mac Maharaj.
Mr Mac Maharaj, who is South African minister of transport, said he would be telling President Nelson Mandela that through compromise by all parties the Northern conflict was capable of being resolved.
Mr Mac Maharaj was accompanied by Mr Leon Wessels of the National Party, who is deputy chairman of the South African Constitutional Assembly, and Gen Constand Viljoen, leader of the right wing Afrikaner Freedom Front Party.
Escorted by the Fianna Fail TD Mr Tom Kitt, who is vice president of European Parliamentarians for Southern Africa, they yesterday met representatives of Sinn Fein, the Ulster Unionist Party, the DUP, the Ulster Democratic Party, the Progressive Unionist Party and the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition.
On Tuesday in Dublin they had met the Fianna Fail leader, Mr Bertie Ahern, Progressive Democrats leader Ms Mary Harney and the SDLP leader, Mr John Hume.
The parliamentarians stressed that they were not in Northern Ireland to offer solutions. Nonetheless, their experience of the South African peace process told them negotiations were the key to a solution.
Mr Wessels noted that while they had met various politicians yesterday, they could not meet them in one group. This was similar to the situation in South Africa before its peace process, where the main political groupings would not speak to one another.
"And that is what negotiation is about, engaging with one another", he added. "I hope a situation will arise when politicians in Northern Ireland can talk. And that may happen sooner rather than later", said Mr Wessels.
Gen Viljoen said that in terms of negotiation his party initially engaged only in bilateral and trilateral meetings, until finally it felt there was sufficient trust established for it to meet Mr Mandela.
As far as Afrikaners were concerned, there was a necessity to deal with the problem of cultural diversity.
Politicians in the North must find ways of "constitutionalising the situation so that people can feel part of the overall solution, said Gen Viljoen.
