Open Society Institute Mourns Loss of Frederick Van Zyl Slabbert and Hadi Soesastro
The Open Society Institute mourns the loss of Frederick Van Zyl Slabbert on May 14, and Hadi Soesastro on May 4.
Van Zyl Slabbert was the founding chair of the Open Society Foundation of South Africa in 1993 and, four years later, became the founding chair of the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa. He also served for a number of years as member of the Global Advisory Board of the Open Society Institute.
Van Zyl Slabbert was a leading opponent of the apartheid system in South Africa. He had led the small parliamentary opposition until he resigned from parliament in 1986 because he considered that he could wage the struggle against apartheid more effectively outside that body. His association with the Soros foundations began the following year when he organized a delegation of Afrikaners to Dakar, Senegal, to meet members of the African National Congress in exile. He sought and obtained support from George Soros for that meeting, which is considered one of the important steps in the effort to persuade white South Africans that the country should make a transition to majority rule.
His death "is a loss to those of us in Africa who, through his selfless and unpaid contribution, learned from him and keep alive our beliefs in the possibility of attaining in our life time open, tolerant, just, and equitable societies," said Isabella Matambanadzo, former Zimbabwe program manager for OSISA.
Hadi Soesastro was a prominent Indonesian policy intellectual who headed a leading think tank, the Center for Strategic International Studies. He was one of the founders of Tifa, the Soros foundations partner in Indonesia, and served for several years as chair of Tifa. Hadi was also the central figure in the establishment of the People’s Parliamentary Assembly, an association of civil society organizations from the countries of ASEAN that sought to promote democracy, human rights, and good governance in the region.
Van Zyl Slabbert and Hadi Soesastro both made important contributions to the development of democracy in their own countries and both played important leadership roles in our efforts to promote open societies around the world. They will be greatly missed.