Aziz Pahad

Aziz Goolam Hoosein Pahad (25 December 1940 – 27 September 2023) was a South African politician and anti-apartheid activist who was Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1994 to 2008.

[2] He matriculated in 1959 at the Central Indian High School in Johannesburg and then, in 1963, completed a Bachelor of Arts at the University of the Witwatersrand, where he majored in sociology and Afrikaans.

[1] At the same time, from 1966, Pahad worked full-time for the exiled African National Congress (ANC), supporting the development of the Anti-Apartheid Movement in the United Kingdom and Europe.

In addition, newly elected President Nelson Mandela appointed him to the Government of National Unity as Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs.

[4] In a controversy of the first term, on 20 April 1997, the Israeli daily newspaper Ha'aretz quoted Pahad as confirming that the 1979 Vela incident – a mysterious flash over the Indian Ocean – had indeed been the result of a South African nuclear test.

[6]In Africa, Pahad played an active role in bringing peace to the warring factions of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi and Angola.

[8] On 20 September 2008, following a year of political turmoil and a controversial judgement by Judge Chris Nicholson in the corruption trial of Jacob Zuma, Mbeki announced that the ANC had asked him to resign as national President.

[12] He also remained active in South African foreign policy: President Jacob Zuma appointed him as his envoy to Israel and Palestine in July 2014,[13] and under the government of President Cyril Ramaphosa, Pahad chaired a foreign policy review commission that recommended a more active leadership role for South Africa in global affairs.