Pieter Wolvaardt joined the Department of Foreign Affairs in 1969 as a raw Afrikaans youngster. By his own admission, although born and bred in Smithfield , it wasn’t until after he joined DFA that he came to realise it wasn’t ‘Smiffield’ but Smithfield . He served his apprenticeship at home in the Union Building and as a junior diplomat in Brazil from 1970 to 1973. He went through the thick of the apartheid days when the world ignored South Africa and most countries cut ties, officially defending the indefensible but all the time knowing that apartheid was wrong. They were interesting times. After spells in London and Lisbon he found himself back in Pretoria on the South American just in time for the Falklands War between Great Britain and the Argentine erupted in 1982. He takes us into the time when South Africa was performing a balancing act between those two countries and going through all manner of difficulties in the process. In 1986 while serving as ambassador in Buenos Aires he was expelled from the country after the SADF mounted simultaneous raids against ANC installations in Botswana , Zimbabwe and Zambia . From 1986 to 1990 he was in Brazil and in 1993 he accompanied President F W de Klerk on a succession of successful official visits to a series of countries in South America . In 1994 President Nelson Mandela appointed him as South Africa ’s first Ambassador to Mexico . He retired after a successful career with the Department of Foreign Affairs in 1998. by Pieter Wolvaardt Paperback 336 pages Publisher Galago Publishing Pty Ltd (30 Sep 2005) Language English ISBN-10 1919854150 ISBN-13 978-1919854151 Product Dimensions 23.8 x 16.6 x 2.2 cm

£16.50