South African History Online

Toast at the Banquet hosted by Queen Beatrix

Amsterdam, 11 March 1999

Your Majesty
Your Royal Highness
Your Highnesses
Honorable Mr. Prime
Minister
Excellencies

Following Your Majesty's extremely successful State Visit to South Africa in
1996, we have been eagerly waiting for the opportunity to respond to your
gracious invitation to be your guest.

I have fond memories of the understanding that you displayed of the hopes of
our people and the many challenges that we still face. The warmth which you
experienced in our country showed the special place that the people of South
Africa have in their hearts for your people.

Between this visit and my last visit to the Netherlands in 1990, stretches a
momentous period in the history of our country. Then I was a newly released
prisoner still fighting for freedom in the land of his birth. Now our first
democratic government, and my own public life, draw to a close. It brings me the
opportunity - as one who can look back over many decades - to record our
people's appreciation of those who have walked the long road towards freedom
with us.

History has joined our two countries for many centuries. Such a long and
complex involvement has both positive and negative aspects, painful as well as
joyous. But what counts, is the support which the Netherlands have given to the
struggle for liberation in South Africa and to the healing and rebuilding of our
nation.

Your Majesty, it was that commitment to freedom and justice which our people
associate with the Netherlands, that motivated your grandmother - the Great
Queen Wilhelmina - at the tender age of 18 to express her support for the
struggle of the Boers against colonial oppression.

The insistence by the people of the Netherlands and their Royal family that
justice and freedom are nothing if not universal, led them to identify with the
struggle for the liberation of all South Africans from the apartheid system.

In this regard, we recall how Your Majesty's Mother, Princess Juliana, when
still Queen, made a personal financial contribution in 1971 to the World Council
of Churches' Programme to Combat Racism. We know that the frailty of old age
keeps her from being with us tonight, but I would like you to convey my deep
gratitude and respect to her.

It was that unqualified commitment to freedom and justice that moved so many
ordinary citizens of the Netherlands to make an extraordinary contribution to
the anti-apartheid struggle.

When sanctions were needed in support of freedom a large part of the Dutch
population were in the forefront of the world campaign to isolate the apartheid
regime. When the time came to lift sanctions, there were few countries that
moved faster to do so.

We will always remain grateful for these and the other campaigns that the
Dutch people shared with us.

It is a special pleasure that some of those who played a leading part in
these campaigns are here tonight. Their decision to restructure their
organisations to become partners in the reconstruction and development of our
country is again consistent with that commitment to freedom and justice.

Your Majesty, in yourself and your husband, His Royal Highness Prince Claus,
South Africa has special partners in our commitment to a peaceful and equitable
world.

I should however use this occasion, if I may, to say that although I was
gratified by Prince Claus' praise for my shirts, I did become worried when I
heard that in his enthusiasm he took off his tie in public and cast it away. I
was afraid that Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who has complained about my dress
sense, might start blaming me for being a bad influence on others!

More seriously, Prince Claus' longstanding involvement with Africa, and his
understanding of our continent's problems, are quite remarkable. It therefore
gives me great pleasure to be able to announce our intention to bestow on him,
as we have previously done on Queen Beatrix, my country's highest order, the
Order of Good Hope.

Your Majesty,

Our countries, the one from the North and the other from the South, have all
the potential to work even closer together to address the huge socio-economic
challenges that none of us can escape in this globalised world.

The rapid expansion in economic ties since we achieved democracy; your
generous support for our development; and our co-operation in pursuit of the
peaceful resolution of conflict are all part of an all-embracing relationship
that grows closer and warmer by the day.

There could be few better ways to express the special relationship between
our two countries than in the poetry of Elisabeth Eybers. I am indeed very happy
that Elisabeth Eybers is present here tonight.

Daar is oor Elisabeth Eybers se gedigte gese dat dit, in plaas van 'n yl
lugbrug, 'n stewige loopplank tussen Nederland en Suid-Afrika gele het. Mens
onthou in die verband daardie twee mooi reels uit haar gedig "Blare per pos";

"mag mens jou weer eens vergewis
van afstand, van verbintens"

U Majesteit, my teenwoordigheid hier en die fantastiese ontvangs wat my te
beurt val, bevestig net weer dat daar tenspyte van die groot fisiese afstand
tussen ons twee lande - die een in die Noorde van Europa, die ander in die Suide
van Afrika - 'n besondere verbondenheid bestaan.

Ladies and gentlemen, I ask you all to join me in a toast to her Majesty
Queen Beatrix and the people of the Netherlands; and to the flourishing of
friendship between our peoples.