Ireland and South Africa are joined by long traditions of human and political contact, the contemporary engagement of their respective peace processes and a bright prospect of future economic and developmental relations. It has therefore been well worth while for the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, to spend a week there and in Lesotho, the mountainous country surrounded by South Africa, one of the principal beneficiaries of the Irish Aid programme.
As a force for southern African political stability in the post-apartheid era and a potentially lucrative market providing a gateway to the region, South Africa is an indispensable partner for European states wishing to develop relations with that part of the world. Mr Ahern yesterday paid tribute to Jan Smuts, the South African statesman who, as he said, played a generous and constructive part in an earlier peace settlement in Ireland 80 years ago.
During his visit he has been meeting Irish people who have settled in South Africa over many decades. They include those who went there in the nineteenth century, Catholic clergy who played an active role in opposing the apartheid system, and those like the minister for education, Mr Kader Asmal, who spent many years doing the same job very effectively in Ireland before returning to participate in the historic transition from apartheid to democracy.
Mr Ahern emphasised once more the importance of arms decommissioning when he spoke in Johannesburg yesterday about the Belfast Agreement. He warned that unless it is accomplished by May this year he believes the agreement will fall apart. That he should speak in such forthright terms is a tribute to the active and influential role South Africans played in the peace process here. Sinn Fein, which has taken those analogies most seriously of all the parties involved in it, should pay the closest possible attention to what the Taoiseach had to say. His references to the differences as well as the similarities between the two processes are also well taken.
Accompanying Mr Ahern is a strong trade delegation including representatives of many leading Irish companies involved in trade and investment with South Africa. Trade has increased sevenfold in the last decade, substantially so far in Ireland's favour. Agreements signed yesterday will help to consolidate the commercial relationship; and there is much potential for developing it further through partnership deals in the software, consultancy, pharmaceutical, health and food and drink fields.
Using South Africa as a platform for economic relations with southern Africa requires sensitivity to concerns of weaker states in the region but has undoubted potential in the longer term. But it will be difficult to make much progress until outstanding Italian and Greek objections to implementing the EU-South Africa trade deal are resolved, which Mr Ahern pledged he would help to do. He stressed that Irish aid is not tied to trade. Much of it is concentrated in South Africa's neighbouring states which are among the poorest in the world. It is a good thing that Mr Ahern has become more familiar with the issues involved during this visit.