Glenn Babb
At St John's he was made Head of House and won the trophy for the best Drum Major in the Witwatersrand Command band competition.
[1] Babb's mission as Ambassador to Canada began in 1985 while South Africa was in crisis and international pressure on Pretoria was mounting.
Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney threatened to break off diplomatic relations with the country when he spoke at the United Nations.
He heavily lobbied politicians, journalists, intellectuals and universities in support of the Reagan Administration's policy of "constructive engagement"[2] rather than sanctions or divestment.
Babb referred to apartheid as a relatively "benign policy"[6] and a means of controlling "urbanization"[6] and claimed that sanctions would harm South African blacks more than the white minority.
In 1985, when he was speaking at the University of Toronto's Hart House, anti-apartheid activist Lennox Farrell hurled the debating society's ceremonial mace at him.
[2] In 1986, Babb appeared on the CBC Radio program Sunday Morning to debate Montreal human rights lawyer Irwin Cotler.
His first interview after arrival in Ottawa was on "Crossfire" which immediately launched public interest in his frank and direct approach to what he regarded as the Canadian misapprehensions about South Africa's future.
Southam News' E Kaye Fulton followed his activities through Canada for a week and wrote a thought-provoking article which caught the nuances of the South African diplomacy in transition.
Accepting an invitation by Chief Louis Stevenson, Babb made a high-profile visit to a First Nations reserve, the Peguis Band in Manitoba, with media in tow, in order to press his point.
de Klerk who, as State President, had the constitutional right to fill four seats in the House of Assembly, the whites-only chamber of the tricameral Parliament, through direct appointment.
[23] Founded to promote peaceful race relations in South Africa, its first Trustees were Wendy Ackerman, Aggrey Klaaste, Peter Bedborough, Danie le Roux and Thijs Nel (and later Pieter Toerien): it donated a fountain "Peace in Africa" to the University of Pretoria, built ceramic housing with an innovative heating process and nominated Thuli Madonsela, Public Protector, for the Civil Courage Prize in New York where for the second time ever the Train Trust awarded an Honorable Mention to her.
South Africa participated for the first time in three decades again in 1993 with an impressive exhibition of several artists' work called "Incroce del Sud" which received good reviews.
In the same year, he was appointed Honorary Consul General of the Republic of Turkey with jurisdiction for the Western, Northern and Eastern Cape Provinces.
[34] In 2005, his firm Babrius was appointed by the Secretariat of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of Countries [ACP] aligned to the EU to write a report, "Study on the Future of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of Countries"[35] which was published in French and English by the ACP in Brussels on 13 February 2006 Babb was chairman of the Owl Club, from 2006 to 2007, a gentlemen's club, in Cape Town.
[1] In 2010 he authored the monograph "Abubakr Effendi - A young Turk in Afrikaans" relating to the work of the Islamic scholar sent in the 19th Century by the caliph to instruct the Muslims of the Cape.
In September 2015 Babb organised the international Sol d'Oro Southern Hemisphere Olive Oil competition in Cape Town which ended with a gala prize-award evening at the residence of the first Italian ambassador to South Africa, Casa Labia.
