Allan Aubrey Boesak (born 23 February 1946)[1] is a South African Dutch Reformed Church cleric, politician and anti-apartheid activist.

[2] Originally from Kakamas, Boesak became active in the separate Coloured branch of the Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk and began to work as a pastor in Paarl.

He rose to prominence during the 1980s as an outspoken critic and opponent of the National Party's policies and played a major anti-apartheid activist role as a patron of the United Democratic Front (UDF) from 1983 to 1991.

Boesak resigned from the Dutch Reformed Church in 1990 after details of an extramarital affair with television presenter Elna Botha emerged;[4] they later married.

In the annual Ashley Kriel Memorial Youth Lecture, he suggested that the ANC was well down the slippery slope of ethnic preferences and "had brought back the hated system of racial categorization.

In reaction, the ANC leaked a memorandum written by Boesak, detailing how he had discussed different roles he could play to help the organisation and stating that his preferred choice was the post of South African ambassador to the United Nations.

[13] The same month saw Boesak voicing his views on the Zimbabwe crisis, calling on citizens of the stricken country to rise up in opposition to President Robert Mugabe and his authoritarian ZANU-PF ruling party.

He also censured Thabo Mbeki for failing in his role as the Southern African Development Community's official mediator to heed the churches' call for a peace-keeping force.

[15] In June 2013, Christian Theological Seminary and Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana appointed Boesak as the Desmond Tutu Professor for Peace, Global Justice, and Reconciliation Studies, a new four-year position held jointly with both institutions.

[16] After being replaced as the ANC party leader for Western Cape province, Boesak was compensated by Mandela with an appointment as ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva.

The DanChurchAid (Danish Church Aid) approached Johannesburg law firm Bell Dewar to investigate the use of a $1 million donation made in 1985 (c.a.

Boesak, the report said, had 'enriched himself substantially' by diverting funds to buy a luxury house and to pay for an inflated salary, vacations, his second wedding and his new wife's business debts.