Former Minister in the Presidency Essop Pahad died peacefully in his sleep on Thursday. [Picture: Tsheko Kabasia/Gallo Images/Sunday World]
South Africans woke up to the saddening news of the passing of veteran anti-apartheid activist and prominent member of Thabo Mbeki’s Cabinet, Essop Pahad. He passed away peacefully in his sleep, aged 84.
Paying tribute in an interview on Salaamedia, Pahad’s long-time comrade and close friend Mohammad Timol recalled Pahad’s life and times. He remembered a cheerful, but strong-minded freedom fighter.
“I will remember Essop as someone who had dedicated his entire life to the struggle for freedom. He did not call himself an anti-apartheid activist. He called himself a freedom fighter, a brutal enemy of the apartheid system,” he said.
SMread: Ministers’ salary increases could cost the poorest
Pahad as a freedom fighter
A prominent figure in the anti-apartheid movement and later an advisor to Mbeki, Pahad became involved in politics when he joined the Transvaal Indian Youth Congress.
His activism led to his arrest in 1962, when he organised a protest while the African National Congress (ANC) was banned. He continued to carry out activities on behalf of the ANC and South African Communist Party (SACP) while in exile.
He later served as Minister in the Presidency (1999-2008) under Thabo Mbeki. He was one of the eight ministers who resigned when the president was recalled by his party in September 2008.
Offering his condolences, President Cyril Ramaphosa said, “We mourn the passing of a veteran of our struggle, 65 years after he took his first revolutionary step of becoming a member of the Transvaal Indian Congress”.
Ramaphosa described Pahad as a “thinker and strategist” who “served our nation with pride, principle, pragmatism, and a charm that lived comfortably alongside a tongue that could lash severely at the right provocation”.
Live | Special tribute to the late Marhoom Essop Pahad, Struggle stalwart with Mohammad Timol, former political detainee and freedom fighter against apartheid #Tribute #EssopPahad @salaamedia @inayetH https://t.co/XKUky679aI
— Salaamedia Stream (@SalaamediaLive) July 6, 2023
