Sizakele Sigxashe

Sizakele Whitmore Sigxashe (21 June 1937 – 14 December 2011) was a South African anti-apartheid activist and intelligence officer. He was the inaugural director-general of the post-apartheid National Intelligence Agency between 1995 and 1999.

During apartheid, Sigxashe worked for the African National Congress (ANC) in exile, notably as head of intelligence evaluation for Umkhonto we Sizwe's Department of National Intelligence and Security between 1983 and 1990. During this period, he was also a member of the ANC's National Executive Committee and of the Central Committee of the South African Communist Party.

Early life and activism Sigxashe was born on 21 June 1937. He attended the University of Fort Hare and joined the African National Congress (ANC), an anti-apartheid organisation, in 1959. The ANC was banned by the apartheid government in 1960 and regrouped in exile elsewhere in Southern Africa; Sigxashe himself entered exile in 1964, soon after the Rivonia Trial. he also served as a member of the ANC's Revolutionary Council and later its Politico-Military Council. The Mail & Guardian later described Sigxashe's role in MK as the role of "one of its low-key background boys rather than a high-profile activist". In that capacity, in 1984, Sigxashe was appointed – with Aziz Pahad and Mtu Jwili – to Hermanus Loots's Stuart Commission, which investigated the causes of the Mkatashinga mutiny in MK's camp at Viana, Angola. Sigxashe presided over a tumultuous period at the NIA. In October 1995, one of his deputies, Muziwendoda Mdluli, was shot dead in an apparent suicide that some viewed as a murder; and Sigxashe reportedly had an unhappy relationship with the Minister of Intelligence, his former MK comrade Joe Nhlanhla.

In the June 1999 general election, Mandela was succeeded as president by Thabo Mbeki, who announced on 20 October 1999 that his former security adviser, Vusi Mavimbela, would replace Sigxashe as director-general of the NIA. The government explained the change by pointing out that Sigxashe would reach retirement age in 2000;

In 2003, Sigxashe was appointed as chairperson of the Intelligence Services Council, which was established to advise Lindiwe Sisulu, Nhlanhla's successor as Intelligence Minister, on employment conditions and policies in the intelligence community.

Personal life and death Sigxashe was married and had children. In October 1995, while Sigxashe was NIA Director-General, the South African Police Service intervened in a domestic quarrel at his home; the NIA denied media reports that the police had been summoned after Sigxashe threatened to shoot his wife and children, suggesting that journalists were being fed false information amid internecine battles in the intelligence community.

Honours On 28 April 2016, President Jacob Zuma admitted Sigxashe posthumously to the Order of Mendi. He was awarded the Order of Mendi for Bravery in Silver for "His excellent contribution to the fight against the oppression of the people of South Africa".