Alfred Nzo

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Thomas Nkobi (l.) And Alfred Nzo (r.) In 1977 at Schiphol Airport

Alfred Baphethuxolo Nzo (born May 26, 1925 in Benoni or Elliot ; † January 13, 2000 in Randburg , Johannesburg ) was a South African politician who served for a long time as Secretary General of the African National Congress (ANC) and as Foreign Minister from 1994 to 1999.

Life

Nzo was born in 1925. His father was an employee of a mining company in Benoni. Alfred Nzo first attended the Roman Catholic Missionary School in Mariazell near Matatiele , then the Healdtown Native School near Fort Beaufort in what is now the Eastern Cape Province . In 1945 he began studying for a Bachelor of Science degree from the South African Native College . In the second year he dropped out and became a member of the ANC Youth League .

He moved to the township of KwaDukathole near Germiston and trained there to be the first black health inspector in South Africa. From 1951 he practiced this activity in Alexandra . In 1952 he took part in the Defiance Campaign . In 1956 he became ANC chairman in Alexandra, in 1957 he organized the bus boycott of Alexandra , which ran between January and March , as a result of which a price increase had to be withdrawn. In 1958 he was elected to the National Executive Committee of the ANC. However, Nzo lost his job in late 1958 and was arrested several times under Section 10 of the Native Urban Areas Act and imprisoned for five months in 1961. On January 2, 1959, he began a full-time job as administrative manager of the ANC headquarters in Johannesburg . The political commitment prompted the government at the time to react. In 1961 the apartheid authorities restricted his personal residence to Mofolo and in November 1962 he was under house arrest for 24 hours. Later that year, charges were brought against him in a trial following the All-In Africa Conference . From June 24, 1963, the South African Police's Security Branch imposed him on 238 days. In February 1964 he was released again without incriminating allegations being brought forward. The leadership of the ANC in exile under Oliver Tambo suggested that he go abroad. Nzo left South Africa on March 22, 1964.

From September 1964 he represented the ANC in Egypt with its headquarters in Cairo as Vice-Representative , and from August 1967 as the main representative in New Delhi ( India ). In April 1969, at the Morogoro Conference in Tanzania, he was elected as the new General Secretary of the ANC, as a result of which he moved to Morogoro, and consequently to Lusaka in Zambia by relocating the headquarters . In 1985 he was re-elected to this function at the Kabwe Conference in Zambia. In 1989 he was part of the ANC delegation, which first negotiated an end to apartheid with representatives of the ruling National Party . In 1991 he lost the election of general secretary to Cyril Ramaphosa , he was appointed vice chairman of the security department of the ANC.

In 1994 the ANC won the parliamentary elections and Nzo on the list position 44 a parliamentary seat. In May 1994 he was appointed Foreign Minister to the new government and held this post under President Nelson Mandela until the 1999 elections . During his tenure, South Africa joined the Organization for African Unity , the Non-Aligned Movement and the Commonwealth of Nations . After this term, Nzo withdrew from politics and suffered a stroke in December of the same year, as a result of which he died in early 2000.

Honors

  • The Alfred Nzo Achievement Awards, prizes for practitioners in the field of environmental hygiene , were given from 2002, most recently in 2015.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Obituary and biography on the ANC website ( memento of November 2, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
  2. ↑ a b c d e Shelag Gastrow: Who's Who in South African Politics. Number 5 . Johannesburg 1995, pp. 241-243
  3. ^ Alfred Nzo District website , accessed December 31, 2012
  4. ↑ Website of the City of Johannesburg ( Memento from January 5, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
personal data
SURNAME Nzo, Alfred
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Nzo, Alfred Baphethuxolo (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION South African politician
DATE OF BIRTH May 26, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Benoni or Elliot
DATE OF DEATH January 13, 2000
Place of death Randburg , Johannesburg