34 Facts About Sipo Mzimela

Sipho Elijah Mzimela was a South African politician, anti-apartheid activist, and Christian minister.

Sipo Mzimela was the first post-apartheid Minister of Correctional Services from 1994 to 1998.

Sipo Mzimela went into exile with the ANC after the Sharpeville uprising and spent three decades in exile, primarily in the United States.

Sipo Mzimela represented the IFP as a minister in Nelson Mandela's Government of National Unity and was the party's deputy chairperson from 1995 to 1998.

Sipo Mzimela returned to the National Assembly in June 1999 as a member of the UDM, but the UDM, in turn, expelled him in June 2001.

Thereafter Sipo Mzimela retired to Atlanta, Georgia, where he died in 2013.

Sipo Mzimela was born on 19 June 1935 in Durban in the former Natal province.

Sipo Mzimela ultimately settled in the United States, where he studied for his master of divinity at the General Theological Seminary in New York.

Sipo Mzimela was ordained as a priest in 1976 and served at churches in New York and New Jersey while completing his doctorate in ethics at New York University.

Sipo Mzimela returned to the United States in 1986 to work as an associate priest at St Bartholomew's Church in Atlanta, Georgia.

Sipo Mzimela said that he had lost faith in the ANC project much earlier, after being exposed to the "thoroughly evil system" of communism in Czechoslovakia in 1963.

However, Mark Gevisser pointed out that Sipo Mzimela appeared in the American media as an ANC representative, arguing in favour of sanctions against apartheid, as late as 1987.

Sipo Mzimela returned to South Africa later the same year and met Mangosuthu Buthelezi, the leader of the KwaZulu bantustan and of the Inkatha Freedom Party.

Sipo Mzimela joined the IFP and went back to the United States to serve as the party's representative there.

Sipo Mzimela returned to South Africa permanently in 1993, the same year that he published Marching to Slavery: South Africa's Descent to Communism, a monograph that argued that an ANC government would be a front for rule by white and Indian communists and would lead to South Africa's demise.

Sipo Mzimela joined the IFP's delegation to the ongoing constitutional negotiations between the ANC and the government, where he frequently took a hard line; according to Gevisser, it was Sipo Mzimela, with Walter Felgate and Mario Ambrosini, who persuaded Buthelezi to form alliances with white right-wing groups and to boycott the 1994 general election.

The IFP ultimately participated in the 1994 general election and Sipo Mzimela was elected to an IFP seat in the National Assembly, the lower house of the new South African Parliament.

Sipo Mzimela continued to represent the IFP at constitutional negotiations.

In late 1997, Sipo Mzimela wrote an op-ed in a Sunday newspaper in which he commented on an unfolding debate about the relationship between the IFP and the ANC.

Sipo Mzimela professed himself to be in favour of a merger between the parties.

The saga inaugurated a long period of tension in the IFP leadership, until, in early April 1998, the IFP announced that Sipo Mzimela had stepped down as deputy chairperson of the party, ostensibly due to ill health, and would be replaced by Lionel Mtshali in an acting capacity.

In subsequent months, Sipo Mzimela was subject to an internal disciplinary inquiry, which ended in 1999 when the IFP found him guilty of having brought the party into disrepute.

Sipo Mzimela was expelled from the IFP on 24 February 1999, meaning that he lost his seat in the National Assembly.

Sipo Mzimela said that he had been expelled because of his insistence that the party should handle matters in a free and open way.

The day after his expulsion from the IFP, Sipo Mzimela announced that he would join the United Democratic Movement, which had recently been founded by Bantu Holomisa as a breakaway from the ANC.

Holomisa said that Sipo Mzimela's recruitment had been initiated by Sifiso Nkabinde, who had held several meetings with Sipo Mzimela before his death.

Sipo Mzimela stood as a UDM candidate in the June 1999 general election and was returned to the National Assembly under the UDM's banner.

However, Sipo Mzimela soon fell out with the leadership of his new party.

Sipo Mzimela said that his suspension was unconstitutional, called for a parliamentary and police investigation into the UDM, and insisted that he would continue to appear at Parliament.

Sipo Mzimela was expelled from the party and therefore lost his parliamentary seat.

Sipo Mzimela had apparently used the UDM's parliamentary funds to pay his domestic worker's salary, as well as to make out a total of R12,000 in cheques to his wife.

Sipo Mzimela claimed that, while he was a lengthy sick leave, acting chief whip Tommy Abrahams and UDM treasurer Nilo Botha had doctored the UDM's audited financial statements.

Sipo Mzimela had diabetes, which led to the amputation of his leg in 2000 and to health problems later in life.

Sipo Mzimela died on 2 February 2013 at a hospice in Decatur, Georgia after several months of illness.