Ronnie Kasrils

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Ronnie Kasrils during the Russell Tribunal on Palestine

Ronald "Ronnie" Kasrils (born November 15, 1938 in Johannesburg ) is a South African politician and author.

Life

Ronnie Kasrils was born as the son of René Kasrils, a representative of Jewish-Lithuanian descent, and his wife Isidore Kasrils, a saleswoman, in the Johannesburg district of Yeoville. He obtained his matric at the King Edward VII School in Johannesburg.

From 1958 to 1960 he worked as a screenwriter, 1960 to 1962 as television and film director for the advertising department of Lever Brothers in Durban .

He joined the ANC after the Sharpeville massacre . In 1961 he became secretary of the Congress of Democrats of Natal Province and joined the then banned SACP. In 1962 he was banned for five years , so he was not allowed to make public speeches or leave Durban. In the same year he was a founding member of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the armed arm of the ANC. He became its commander in Natal in 1963. In 1964 he began military training in Soviet Odessa , followed by courses in intelligence activities and military leadership, which he completed as a brigadier . From 1965 he lived in London and other ANC bases abroad. In 1983 he moved up to the High Command of the MK and was henceforth responsible for its secret service operations. In 1985 he was elected to the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the ANC for the first time, and in 1987 to the Central Committee of the SACP. In early 1990 he took part in Operation Vula and remained under threat of prosecution despite the ANC's readmission. It was not until June 1991 that he could appear in public again. From 1991 to 1994 he headed the campaign department for the ANC and took part in negotiations between MK and the South African Defense Force . In 1993 his autobiography Armed and dangerous was published .

In 1992, Kasrils was one of the organizers of the March on Bisho , which ended with the Bisho massacre . In the Mandela Cabinet , Kasrils took over the post of Deputy Minister in the Defense Department. 1999 to 2004 he was in the Cabinet Mbeki I Minister of Water and Forestry ( Minister for Water Affairs and Forestry ). He was also to 25 September 2008 of 27 April 2004 Cabinet Mbeki II Minister of Intelligence ( Minister for Intelligence Services ), and from December 1986 to 2008 Member of the Central Committee of the South African Communist Party (SACP).

In 2015 he was one of the co-founders of the opposition United Front (UF).

Kasrils campaigns for the rights of the Palestinians . In 2004 he met the then President Yasser Arafat in Ramallah . He dealt in several works with the work of the British philosopher Bertrand Russell .

Ronnie Kasrils was married to the Scottish-South African anti-apartheid activist Eleanor Kasrils (1936–2009) for 45 years . In 2010 he wrote the book The Unlikely Secret Agent about her work as an agent for the ANC . The marriage resulted in two sons and a daughter. Kasrils has been remarried since 2012.

Literary works

  • 1993: Armed and dangerous.
  • 2010: The unlikely secret agent.
  • 2017: A single man. Kasrils and the Zuma enigma.

Awards

Web links

Commons : Ronnie Kasrils  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i biography at intelligence.gov.za (English; archive version from 2009)
  2. ↑ 'UF to shake up political landscape', says Kasrils. bdlive.co.za, accessed February 8, 2015
personal data
SURNAME Kasrils, Ronnie
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kasrils, Ronald (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION South African politician
DATE OF BIRTH November 15, 1938
PLACE OF BIRTH Johannesburg