Abdullah Omar (politician)

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Abdullah Mohamed Omar (born May 26, 1934 in Cape Town ; † March 13, 2004 there ; Dullah Omar for short ) was a South African lawyer and politician who was in opposition to the apartheid regime and who served as a minister from 1994 until his death.

Life

Abdullah Omar was born as one of eleven siblings in Cape Town's Observatory district. His parents were Indian-born Muslims who ran a trading business. He attended Trafalgar High School in District Six . His English teacher, the Trotskyist Ben Kies , convinced him to join the Non European Unity Movement (NEUM). Omar studied at the University of Cape Town and earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1955 and a Bachelor of Law in 1957 . From 1960 he worked as a lawyer in District Six and defended anti-apartheid activists of the Pan-African Congress (PAC) and the African National Congress (ANC), later also the Black Consciousness Movement . He himself belonged to the NEUM until the early 1980s. He joined the United Democratic Front (UDF) in 1983 and in 1987 became its chairman in the western part of the Cape Province .

Omar was banned several times and detained without charge. He supported incarcerated ANC members, including Nelson Mandela , on Robben Island and other prisons . He survived two attacks in 1989 by the Civil Cooperation Bureau , a secret division of the former South African army . At the first attack, his heart tablets should be exchanged for a deadly poison. In the second attempted attack, he was saved by the fact that he was with his wife. In 1989 he became the spokesman for Nelson Mandela, shortly before his release after 27 years in prison. He joined the ANC.

In 1994, Omar became Minister of Justice under President Mandela's first freely elected government . For security reasons he had to give up his modest home in the Cape Town district of Rylands against his will. In the absence of Mandela and the Vice-Presidents, he assumed the role of President. Omar's work is closely linked to the establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which has dealt with crimes committed during apartheid since 1996. As a minister, he played a key role in the introduction of the new democratic constitution in 1996 . Against the increased organized crime , he founded a nationwide investigative service modeled on the FBI , which was called The Scorpions .

After the parliamentary elections in 1999 he took over the South African Ministry of Transport under President Thabo Mbeki and headed this department until his death from Hodgkin's lymphoma . He received a state funeral and was buried on the same day according to Islamic rite.

Omar was married and had three children.

Honors

2005: Order of Luthuli in silver (posthumous)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c portrait at sahistory.org.za (English), accessed on October 28, 2012
  2. ↑ a b c d Obituary of the University of Cape Town (English, PDF file; 36 kB), accessed on February 7, 2016
  3. ↑ a b c d e Obituary in The Guardian , accessed October 28, 2012
  4. ^ Notice of death at iol.co.za , accessed on October 28, 2012
personal data
SURNAME Omar, Abdullah
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Omar, Abdullah Mohamed; Omar, Dullah
BRIEF DESCRIPTION South African lawyer and politician
DATE OF BIRTH May 26, 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH Cape Town
DATE OF DEATH March 13, 2004
Place of death Cape Town