Personal

Date of Birth: 17 June 1929

Pastimes: Plays the piano, prefers classical music

Previous Position

·         Deputy Minister of Safety and Security in the South African Government (1994 – 2004) 

Academic Qualifications

• Matriculated at St Peter Secondary School, Rosettenville, Johannesburg (1947)  
• BA with English and History, University of Fort Hare (1951)
• LLB, University of London (1956)
• Passed the Advocates Admission Exams (1957)
• Masters Degree in History, University of London (1968)

Career/Positions/ Memberships/Other Activities

• Became member of the ANC Youth League (ANCYL)(1944)  
• Involved in the Defiance Campaign (1952)
• Accused in Treason Trail (1956)
• Admitted as attorney of the Supreme Court of SA (17 February 1958)
• Practised in Durban until 1960
• Went into exile (1960)
• Practiced in Lesotho (1960-1965)
• Assistant Attorney General, Botswana (1972-1976)
• Private practice (1976-1984)
• Traveled widely all over the world
• Returned to South African (1991)
• Became official of the IFP (1992)
• Retired from Parliament in 2004
• He written extensively in journals and other publications
• Since retirement has served as lecturer and legal consultant.

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BIOGRAPHY:  LAURIE NATHAN

Laurie Nathan (B.Bus.Sci/LLB, Cape Town; M.Phil, Bradford) is a research fellow with the Crisis States Research Centre at the London School of Economics and with the Department of Environmental and Geographical Sciences at the University of Cape Town. Between 1992 and 2003 he was Executive Director of the Centre for Conflict Resolution at UCT.

From 1994 to 2001 Laurie was a policy adviser to the Minister of Defence, the Deputy Minister of Defence and the chairperson of the parliamentary defence committee. He drafted the White Paper on Defence (1996), the Code of Conduct for the South African National Defence Force (1999), and the defence foreign policy of the Department of Defence (1999). He was a member of the drafting committees responsible for the Defence Review (1998), the Military Discipline Supplementary Measures Act (1999), the White Paper on the South African Defence Related Industries (1999), the Defence Act (2002) and the Armaments Corporation of South Africa, Limited Act (2003).

Between 1995 and 2002 he served on the Civic Education Monitoring and Advisory Committee of the Department of Defence. In 2006 he was appointed to serve on the Technical Committee and the Steering Committee of the Civic Education Programme for the civilian intelligence services in South Africa.

In 1994 Laurie was appointed by President Mandela to serve on the Cameron Commission of Inquiry into Arms Trade. In 2001 he was commissioned by the parliamentary defence committee to redraft the National Conventional Arms Control Bill, and commissioned by the Department of Defence to redraft the Prohibition of Anti-Personnel Mines Bill.

In 1999-2000 Laurie was an adviser to the Foreign Minister of Swaziland in his capacity as the Chair of the Inter-State Defence and Security Committee in Southern Africa. Laurie was the principal drafter of the SADC Protocol on Politics, Defence and Security Co-operation (2001).

He has served on the Editorial Advisory Board of the South African Journal of International Affairs; the Editorial Committee of Strategic Review for Southern Africa; the Executive Committee of the Home for All Campaign; the review team of the Countries at Risk of Instability Project of the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit, United Kingdom; the Board of Directors of Conciliation Resources; the Carter Centre’s International Council for Conflict Resolution; the Advisory Committee of the Arms Division of Human Rights Watch; the Expert Advisory Group of the UNDP Democratic Governance Practice Network; and the Critical Review Panel of the Implementation Framework for Security System Reform, OECD Development Assistance Committee (forthcoming).

In 2005 Laurie was an adviser to the Palestinian security services and the Ward Mission on the preparation of a Palestinian White Paper on Safety and Security. In the first quarter of 2006 he was a member of the African Union’s mediation team for the Darfur conflict; his article on the mediation and the Darfur Peace Agreement is available on the website of the Crisis States Research Centre at the London School of Economics www.crisisstates.com/download/wp/wpSeries2/WP5.2.pdf.

Laurie is currently writing a book on Local Ownership of Security Sector Reform, a working version of which can be found at www.crisisstates.com/download/others/SSR%20Reform.pdf. 

BIOGRAPHY:  DR FRENE GINWALA

BIOGRAPHY:

Dr Frene Ginwala was elected as the Speaker of the National Assembly of the first democratic Parliament of South Africa in 1994 and served in that office for the first 10 years of South Africa’s democracy (1994-2004).

After the ANC was unbanned and its leaders released from prison, Dr Ginwala had returned to South Africa after more than 30 years in exile

She helped establish the external mission of the ANC and arranged for ANC leaders and members to travel in and out of South Africa clandestinely, including Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela.  Before and during her exile as an ANC-member, Dr Ginwala worked as a journalist in Tanzania, and for the ANC in Zambia and Mozambique and as the ANC spokesperson in the United Kingdom. In Tanzania, Frene Ginwala established and edited a monthly journal Spearhead and worked as a freelance journalist for The Guardian, Observer and Economist in Britain and for the BBC. 

In 1969, she was asked by President Nyerere to return to Tanzania as Managing Editor of the daily and weekend English language newspapers, The Standard and Sunday news.   She left in 1971 after publishing exposures of forced marriages in Zanzibar, prison conditions in Tanzania and atrocities in Sudan. 

In Britain she continued to work as a journalist producing programmes for African radio stations.  She also completed her academic work, and obtained a D.Phil at Oxford.  In 1974 she was able to return to Mozambique as a result of political changes in the region. She began to work on a full time basis for the ANC.

She became Head of the Political Research Unit in the office of President Tambo and became known for her research on South Africa’s nuclear weapons programme, sanctions, and the arms and oil embargo.  She also lectured at universities and institutions in a number of countries and participated in various UN, UNESCO and other international conferences on South Africa, Conflict Research, Women, Development and Technology Transfer.

On returning to South Africa, she and was appointed to the Secretariat in the office of Deputy President Mandela, and continued when Mr Mandela was elected President of the ANC. Between 1991 and 1994, Dr Ginwala was the Head the ANC's Research Department.  She also served as the Deputy Head of the ANC Commission for the Emancipation of Women and was the ANC Representative on the Science and Technology Initiative.

During the negotiation process, Dr Ginwala was a member of the ANC team at CODESA and in the Multi-Party Negotiations she served as its representative on the Technical Committee responsible for drafting new laws on elections and the Independent Electoral Commission.

In 1994 she entered South Africa’s first democratically elected Parliament.  In her capacity as the Speaker of the National Assembly, she was instrumental in transforming Parliament; including the establishment of committees and expanding their scope; encouraging Parliament to become the national forum for debates on major national and international issues, opening parliament and its committees to the public and the press; easing the dress codes and restrictions on entrance to the public gallery.  From the outset, she steered the rules and procedures to incorporate the principle of inclusivity enshrined in the Constitution and facilitated the fullest participation of all parties, including allocating front benches to most party leaders, persuading the allocation of additional speaking time to the smaller parties and providing financial resources and support to all parties.  She served on the Committee that drafted the Code of Ethics for M Ps and addressed international conferences on Ethics and corruption, including Global I & II. 

Under the Speakers direction the South African Parliament initiated its nation building Millennium Project, based on its collection of old European maps of Africa.  The project was designed to assist South Africans to claim a multifaceted national identity, through understanding how the differing experiences of their common past was shaping their current perspectives.  Dr Ginwala’s research for the project located the earliest surviving map of the entire continent of Africa in the National Archives of China.  Dated 1389, it predates maps created in Europe.  Permission was granted for the first ever public exhibition of the map (a digital reproduction on silk) in the South African Parliament.

Dr Ginwala has been committed to the achievement of substantive equality for women.  She was a founder member and the first National Convenor of the Women’s National Coalition, which brought South African women from across the political, economic, social and religious spheres together in order to ensure that South Africa's new Constitution provided a legal framework for effective equality.  In Parliament, she conceived and initiated the establishment of the Joint Committee on the Quality of Life and Status of women with powers to consider and report on the impact on women of all legislation introduced into Parliament and monitor all international and domestic commitments made by the South African Government

Dr Ginwala has served as the President of the South African Speakers’ Forum, the Chairperson of the Africa Region of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, and the Co-Chairperson of the South African Branches of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, and the International Parliamentary Union.

She served as a member of the Preparatory Committee for the First World Conference of Presiding Officers.  Dr Ginwala was previously a board member of International IDEA as well as the former Chairperson of the SADC Parliamentary Forum. She was a former member of the United Nations Secretary-General’s Advisory Panel of High-Level Personalities on African Development and served as a Commissioner on the International Commission on Human Security, charged with developing the concept of Human Security.

Dr Ginwala chaired the OAU Conference of African Parliaments, which drafted and adopted the Protocol on the Pan African Parliament.  After the formation of the African Union she was elected as Chairperson of the African Union (AU) Steering Committee tasked with planning the establishment of the Pan African Parliament.  Dr Ginwala was among the first five South African MPs elected to it.

Dr Ginwala continues to work on issues pertaining to Human Security, strengthening democracy and promoting, good governance, development and human rights.  Over a period of years she has sought to ensure that women are involved in resolving conflicts and in building peace.  She has engaged with women in Burundi, the DRC, Liberia, Rwanda, as well as with women in Palestine and Israel.  She has been invited to chair many international Conferences,  groups of experts convened by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, sessions of the ECA‘s African Development Forum IV and others