The apartheid system in South Africa was ended through a series of negotiations between 1990 and 1993 and through unilateral steps by the de Klerk government. These negotiations took place between the governing National Party, the African National Congress, a wide variety of other political organisations. Negotiations took place against a backdrop of political violence in the country, including allegations of a state-sponsored third force destabilising the country; the negotiations resulted in South Africa's first non-racial election, won by the African National Congress. Apartheid was a system of racial segregation in South African government, it was formalised in 1948, forming a framework for political and economic dominance by the white population and restricting the political rights of the black majority. Between 1960 and 1990, the African National Congress and other black opposition political organisations were banned; as the National Party cracked down on black opposition to apartheid, most leaders of ANC and other opposition organisations were either killed, imprisoned or went into exile.

However, increasing local and international pressure on the government, as well as the realisation that apartheid could neither be maintained by force forever nor overthrown by the opposition without considerable suffering led both sides to the negotiating table. The Tripartite Accord, which brought an end to the South African Border War in neighbouring Angola and Namibia, created a window of opportunity to create the enabling conditions for a negotiated settlement, recognized by Dr Niel Barnard of the National Intelligence Service. On 4 January 1974, Harry Schwarz, leader of the liberal-reformist wing of the United Party, met with Gatsha Buthelezi, Chief Executive Councillor of the black homeland of KwaZulu, signed a five-point plan for racial peace in South Africa, which came to be known as the Mahlabatini Declaration of Faith; the declaration stated that "the situation of South Africa in the world scene as well as internal community relations requires, in our view, an acceptance of certain fundamental concepts for the economic and constitutional development of our country".

It called for negotiations involving all peoples, in order to draw up constitutional proposals stressing opportunity for all with a Bill of Rights to safeguard these rights. It suggested, it affirmed that political change must take place through non-violent means. The declaration was the first of such agreements by acknowledged black and white political leaders in South Africa that affirmed to these principles; the commitment to the peaceful pursuit of political change was declared at a time when neither the National Party nor the African National Congress was looking to peaceful solutions or dialogue. The declaration was heralded by the English speaking press as a breakthrough in race relations in South Africa. Shortly after it was issued, the declaration was endorsed by several chief ministers of the black homelands, including Cedric Phatudi, Lucas Mangope and Hudson Nisanwisi. Despite considerable support from black leaders, the English speaking press and liberal figures such as Alan Paton, the declaration saw staunch opposition from the National Party, the Afrikaans press and the conservative wing of Harry Schwarz's United Party.

The first meetings between the South African Government and Nelson Mandela were driven by the National Intelligence Service under the leadership of Niel Barnard and his Deputy Director General, Mike Louw. These meetings were secret in nature and were designed to develop an understanding about whether there were sufficient common grounds for future peace talks; as these meetings evolved, a level of trust developed between the key actors. To facilitate future talks while preserving secrecy needed to protect the process, Barnard arranged for Mandela to be moved off Robben Island to Pollsmoor Prison in 1982; this provided Mandela with more comfortable lodgings, but gave easier access in a way that could not be compromised. Barnard therefore brokered an initial agreement in principle about what became known as "talks about talks", it was at this stage that the process was elevated from a secret engagement to a more public engagement. The first less-tentative meeting between Mandela and the National Party government came while P. W. Botha was State President.

In November 1985, Minister Kobie Coetsee met Mandela in the hospital while Mandela was being treated for prostate surgery. Over the next four years, a series of tentative meetings took place, laying the groundwork for further contact and future negotiations, but little real progress was made, the meetings remained secret until several years later; as the secret talks bore fruit and the political engagement started to take place, the National Intelligence Service withdrew from centre stage in the process, moved to a new phase of operational support work. This new phase was designed to test public opinion about a negotiated solution. Central to this planning was an initiative that became known in Security Force circles as the Dakar Safari, which saw a number of prominent Afrikaner opinion-makers engage with the African National Congress in Dakar and Leverkusen, Germany at events organized by the Institute for a Democratic Alternative for South Africa; the operational objective of this meeting was not to understand the opinions of the actors themselves—that was well known at this stage within strategic management circles—but rather to gauge public opinion about a movement away from the previous security posture of confrontation and repression to a new posture based

Anne Caroline Jenkin, Baroness Jenkin of Kennington is a Conservative member of the House of Lords. Jenkin was born Anne Caroline Strutt on 8 December 1955 to the Hon. Charles Strutt and the Hon. Jean Davidson, her father is the son of the physicist the 4th Baron Rayleigh by his first wife, Lady Hilda Clements. Her mother is the daughter of the Conservative politician the 1st Viscount Davidson and the life peeress Baroness Northchurch. Jenkin stood for election as a Member of Parliament in Glasgow Provan in the 1987 general election. In 2005, she co-founded Women2Win with Theresa May, a campaign to increase the number of female Conservative MPs, she is its co-chair with Mark Harper. She co-founded the Conservative Friends of International Development in 2011, she was created a life peer on 26 January 2011 as Baroness Jenkin of Kennington, of Hatfield Peverel in the County of Essex. She was introduced to the House of Lords on 27 January 2011, where she sits on the Conservative benches, she has spoken in favour of equal marriage.

As of 2019, Jenkin is a member of parliamentary committees on Intergenerational Fairness and Provision and Hybrid Instruments. She has served on committees addressing Equality Act 2010 and Disability and Charities. In December 2014, she suggested that one of the causes of the rise of hunger and food bank use in the UK was because "poor people don't know how to cook". At the time of the statement, she was a member of the APPG on Food Poverty and Hunger which presented a report on food poverty noting there were 4 million people in the UK struggling to afford food, she apologised for the remark, saying she was speaking without a script and had made a mistake: "What I meant was as a society we have lost our ability to cook". In January 2018, Jenkin attracted media attention after criticising abuse received by Conservative candidates during the 2017 general election in a debate on social media regulation in the House of Lords. Jenkin cited the example of a candidate being abused as a "fucking Tory cunt" – this was believed to be the first time the word "cunt" has been used in the House of Lords.

Jenkin is a Trustee of Cool Earth and Feeding Britain. She was a Trustee of UNICEF UK. In 2016, Jenkin became founding chancellor of Writtle University College, on its achieving university college status; the college is in specialises in agricultural and horticultural courses. In 2017, Jenkin was chair of the Centre for Social Justice Off the Scales working group on childhood obesity in England. Since 1988 she has been married to the Conservative Member of Parliament Bernard Jenkin, whose father was the Conservative life peer The Lord Jenkin of Roding. Jenkin and her husband have two sons. Miss Anne Strutt The Hon. Mrs Bernard Jenkin The Rt. Hon; the Baroness Jenkin of Kennington

Panteleimon of Gjirokastër was a bishop of the Orthodox Autocephalous Church of Albania. He was the metropolitan bishop of Gjirokastër and a member of the exiled Northern Epirus lobby after the end of World War II. Panteleimon Kotokos was born in Korçë, in the Manastir Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire in 1860. After he finished middle level education in his home place he was accepted in the Theological School of Halki, in Istanbul. For several years he worked as a high school theology teacher, he acquired a degree in law science at the University of Athens. After an agreement with the Albanian authorities, in 1937, the Ecumenical Patriarchate chose a number of educated religious personalities for key position in the declared as autocephalous Orthodox Church of Albania. Among them were Panteleimon Kotokos as metropolitan of Gjirokastër and Eulogios Kourilas, as metropolitan of Korçë; when the communist regime of Enver Hoxha came to power in Albania, he was declared'enemy of the state' and was expelled from the country.

He fled to Greece where together with Eulohios Kourilas became the heads of the Northern Epirus Central Committee. On November 18, 1945, he managed to organize a massive demonstration in Athens, where 150,000 people participated; the following years he became active as a member of the exiled Northern Epirus lobby propagating discrimination of the Greek minority by the Communist regime of Albania