Ian Phillips

Ian Munro Phillips ( – 26 March 2007) was a South African academic, politician, and civil servant. He represented the African National Congress (ANC) in the National Assembly from 1994 to 1996. After that, he was special advisor to Minister Jeff Radebe until his death in 2007.

A historian by training, Phillips was formerly a lecturer at the University of Natal between 1987 and 1994. During that period, he and Radebe worked together in the ANC, arming ANC-aligned self-defence units in the Natal province.

Early life and academic career Born in Nairobi, Kenya in 1958 or 1959, Phillips trained as a historian, graduating from Rhodes University. He was an academic in the political studies department at the University of Natal's Durban campus from 1987 to 1994, with regional concentrations in Southern Africa and the Soviet Union.

Self-defence units Phillips officially joined the ANC in 1990, the year that it was unbanned by the apartheid government. At the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1998–1999, they applied for and received amnesty for their role in arms trafficking. He resigned from his seat in early 1996 in order to become a special adviser to his former comrade, Jeff Radebe, who was then serving as Minister of Public Works. Over the next decade, he followed Radebe to the Ministry of Public Enterprises and then to the Ministry of Transport, where he remained Radebe's special advisor until his death in 2007.

Personal life and death Phillips was HIV-positive. He was admitted to the Christiaan Barnard Memorial Hospital in Cape Town on 26 February 2007, suffering from cytomegalovirus-induced pneumonia, and died there on 26 March 2007.