In this section

Media Centre

Media Centre

 

IEC Voter Registration Abroad for 26 27 January 2024

IMMIGRATION & AFFAIRES CIVIQUES

For information regarding Immigration and Civic Matters, you can consult the website of the South African Department of Home Affairs: http://www.dha.gov.za/
South African Department of Home Affairs : http://www.dha.gov.za/

SOUTH AFRICA’S CANDIDATURE TO THE UNITED NATIONS HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL (UNHRC)

 

 

 

PRESIDENT RAMAPHOSA DECLARES A SPECIAL OFFICIAL FUNERAL FOR THE LATE AMBASSADOR MODISE

President Cyril Ramaphosa has declared a Special Official Funeral Category 1 for South Africa’s former Chief of State Protocol and recipient of the National Order of Luthuli, Ambassador Billy Modise, who passed on 20 June at the age of 87. “The late Ambassador Modise served our country selflessly and diligently and deserves this honour for his exceptional contribution to the achievement of a South Africa free of racial oppression and to the building of a non-racial, non-sexist and democratic country,” said President Ramaphosa.
 The President has directed that the National Flag be flown at half-mast at every flag station in the country until Thursday, 28 June 2018, the day of the funeral.
Billy Modise was born in Bloemfontein, in the then Orange Free State, on 8 December 1930. He grew up in a heightened political environment. He received an Anglican scholarship to attend secondary school in Modeerport. In January 1955, Modise went to the University of Fort Hare to study medicine. He joined the African National Congress (ANC) on the train while en route to Fort Hare. In the Eastern Cape while still a student, he worked with, among others, Prof. Z.K. Matthews and Govan Mbeki. From these seasoned political activists he would absorb the politics of liberation, which would be imbedded in his mind from then on. He became secretary of the ANC Youth League Fort Hare branch, and later secretary of the Student Representative Council.

His health condition forced him to switch from medicine to a BA degree, which he completed in 1959. While still at Fort Hare, Modise was also a member of the National Union of South African Students (Nusas), of which he was an executive member. In 1960, he was asked by Nusas to attend a conference in Sweden. Nusas arranged with the European student formations for a Swedish scholar-ship for Modise.

He arrived in Sweden in January 1960. He started mobilising all university formations against the apartheid state. Between 1960 and 1972, Modise’s political mobilisation extended to Finland, Denmark and Norway where he set up ANC networks.

In 1975, he was redeployed to the United States to work in New York for Habitat, the United Nations (UN) Conference on Human Settlements, where he was preparing policy papers on resettlement. From 1976 to 1988, he also worked for the UN, training exiled Namibians in political science, sociology and education, among other courses.

Modise left the UN in 1988 to work for the ANC full-time. He was sent back to Sweden as chief representative of the ANC. In 1991, he was recalled from Sweden to head Matla Trust, established to prepare for the 1994 elections at the then Shell House ANC head-quarters. In 1995, he was posted to Canada as high commissioner to keep the active support of the ANC alive.

Modise was the Chief of State Protocol from 1999 to 2006.

“Billy Modise opted for a fight against oppression rather than accepting secondary citizenship status in his country. He braved the unknown, traversing many countries in search of an answer to the abhorrent system of apartheid in South Africa”.

The Presidency