Josiah Jele

Josiah Khiphusizi Jele (born 1 May 1930) is a retired South African politician, diplomat, and former anti-apartheid activist who was the first post-apartheid Permanent Representative of South Africa to the United Nations from 1995 to 1999. He is a veteran of the African National Congress (ANC), of which he has been a member since 1950.

Jele went into exile with the ANC in 1965 and represented the party in a variety of capacities, including as its head of international affairs from 1978 to 1982. He was a member of the ANC National Executive Committee for over two decades. After the end of apartheid, Jele served briefly in the National Assembly before President Nelson Mandela appointed him as an ambassador in 1995.

Early life and anti-apartheid activism Jele was born on 1 May 1930 in Alexandra, a township outside Johannesburg. He joined the ANC in 1950 and remained a member after the organisation was banned by the apartheid government in 1960. After being detained for his activism between 1964 and 1965, he went into exile, joining the ANC at its headquarters abroad. He was stationed with Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) in Tanzania, where he edited the MK journal, Dawn, while serving as political commissar between 1967 and 1968.

Jele was the ANC's director of broadcasting from 1970 to 1971 and secretary for African affairs at the World Peace Council in Helsinki, Finland from 1970 to 1971. He also remained one of the ANC's foremost policy intellectuals and edited two newsletters on global affairs, Focus on Africa and The Peace Courier. The following year, at the ANC's 48th National Conference in Durban, he was not directly elected to the ANC National Executive Committee, but he was co-opted as a member for one final term, which ended in 1994.

Post-apartheid career In the 1994 general election, South Africa's first under universal suffrage, Jele was elected to represent the ANC in the new National Assembly. However, he was already viewed as a likely diplomat-designate, and in February 1995 he was appointed as South Africa's first post-apartheid Permanent Representative to the United Nations. Jele and Moleketi agreed with incumbent President Thabo Mbeki that an "ultra-left sectarian faction" threatened to undermine the ANC.

In July 2004, Jele was shot by unidentified assailants outside his home in Lombardy West, Johannesburg. The attack was treated as an assassination attempt and was linked to Jele's involvement in the regulation of the South African private security industry; at the time he was chairperson of the Security Officers Board and chairperson of the council of the Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority.

In 2021, the ANC National Executive Committee appointed Jele to an internal panel that was tasked with hearing Ace Magashule's appeal against his suspension from his office as ANC secretary-general.

Honours On 22 April 2008, President Mbeki awarded Jele the Order of Luthuli in silver for "His excellent contribution to the fight against the apartheid system in South Africa".

Personal life Jele's wife Catherine Jele, is French–Hungarian; they have children. He also had a son, anti-apartheid activist and diplomat Mpendulo "Squire" Jele (1955–2022), with Simangele Khumalo.