A/58/313 community, including through visits to the neighbourhood in which they live and indepth interviews with leaders and members of that community. 15. During these regional consultations and studies, UNESCO had been involved in the identification of specific characteristics of the various regions of the world and in the establishment of priority areas for its new strategy, which will be submitted to its next General Conference in September and October 2003. These activities were conducted in close cooperation with OHCHR and, in particular, with its Anti-Discrimination Unit. 16. The Special Rapporteur also participated in a workshop on the preparation of a guide for combating racism and promoting tolerance, organized jointly by UNESCO and OHCHR on 19 and 20 February 2003 at UNESCO headquarters. This important meeting of experts from all parts of the world, including one member of CERD, provided an opportunity to discuss new approaches to the development of educational materials in response to the new international situation. 17. From 7 to 9 May 2003, at the invitation of OHCHR, the Special Rapporteur attended a regional workshop on strategies for the adoption and implementation of affirmative action policies for Latin American and Caribbean peoples of African descent, held in Montevideo. The purpose of this meeting was to provide follow-up to the Durban Conference recommendations on affirmative action by proposing measures designed to improve the situation of peoples of African descent in the areas of, inter alia, education, employment, health and the administration of justice. During this meeting, the Special Rapporteur stressed that education and teaching were essential ways of changing minds and building pluralist, multicultural, genuinely egalitarian societies. He therefore recommended that the history of resistance to slavery and colonization by peoples of African descent, including the remarkable intelligence and ethics which motivated this struggle, should be retold in order to restore the dignity and humanity stolen from these peoples by the legacy of suffering and tragedy in which the post-slavery ideological system has sought to trap them. C. Field missions of the Special Rapporteur 18. From 12 to 26 July 2003, the Special Rapporteur visited Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago, by agreement and in full cooperation with each country’s Government. The goal of that visit was to make a comparative study of the inter-ethnic relations in the two countries, given their similar demographic composition and a common legacy of slavery and colonialism greatly marked by race- and colour-based prejudices. The Special Rapporteur’s visit should, inter alia, contribute to the efforts now being made by the United Nations to promote, improve and, in the last analysis, establish peaceful relations between communities divided by their historical past and the partisan use of politics and ideology. 19. In Guyana, the Special Rapporteur met with the country’s most senior officials, including the President of the Republic, His Excellency Mr. Bharrat Jagdeo, Mr. Robert Corbin, head of the People’s National Congress/Reform (PNC/R), the main opposition party, and leaders of the new party of indigenous Guyanese people, the Guyana Action Party. The Special Rapporteur wished to deepen his understanding of the complexity of Guyanese society by meeting representatives from civil society, religious communities, intellectual circles and the media. He 9