Tributes pour in from across the world for South African peace advocate

Tributes are pouring in from across the world for South African anti-apartheid activist, human rights campaigner, and constitutional lawyer, Nicholas “Fink” Haysom, who died on Wednesday at the age of 73 following a short illness.

Haysom was living in New York where he was serving as the United Nations special representative for South Sudan.

He helped draft South Africa’s post-apartheid constitution and had an extensive international career focused on democratic governance, constitutional and electoral reform, and peace building.

UN secretary-general António Guterres said he was “saddened” by his death describing Haysom as a principled lawyer, tireless peacemaker, and steadfast champion of the values of the United Nations.

“In every task, he combined deep legal insight with sound political judgment and an unwavering dedication to improving the lives of people,” said Guterres’ deputy spokesperson, Farhan Haq.

In addition to his distinguished international career, Haysom served as Nelson Mandela's chief legal advisor throughout his presidency.

Mandela’s former personal assistant, Zelda la Grange, described him a “formidable man” who legal expertise and commitment to democracy made him an indispensable ally.

President Cyril Ramaphosa paid tribute to Haysom saying his commitment to “justice and peace made our country, our continent, and the world a better place”.

He urged South Africans “to honour his contribution to our nation and the international community by upholding the fundamental rights and maintaining the peace he advocated so passionately and eloquently.”

The African Union chairperson, H.E. Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, also expressed his sadness describing Haysom as “a trusted partner and dear friend”.

“Those of us who had the privilege to work with him will remember his humility, his patience, and his belief in dialogue, even in the most challenging moments,” he said in a statement.

Haysom grew up in Durban in a family that believed in racial equality, especially his mother who was an activist against apartheid.

At university, he became a critic of apartheid as well and decided to go to law school at the Universities of Natal and Cape Town to tackle the conditions people lived in.

There he became president of the anti-apartheid National Union of South African Students and was arrested or detained about half a dozen times.

He once serving six months in solitary confinement and was also served with a banning order that effectively placed him under house arrest for two years.

When his this order was lifted, Haysom turned his energies to helping found a human rights law firm in Johannesburg where he was working in 1990 when Mandela was released.

The African National Congress, which Mandela led, asked Haysom to join its Constitutional Commission. He went on to work across the decades to end ethnic discord.

Under Mandela, Haysom joined a team that helped end ethnic violence in Burundi between Hutus and Tutsis in the 1990s.

He then was asked to try to find a formula to restore peace in Sudan between the north and south, which eventually led to South Sudan seceding and becoming an independent country in 2011.

Haysom then spent from 2005 to 2007 in Iraq trying to find a formula for its communities — Shia, Sunni and Kurd — to live together, an issue he saw in all conflicts.

From 2007 to 2012, he served in then-UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s office as director for political, peacekeeping, and humanitarian affairs. He then spent four years in Afghanistan from 2012 to 2016 in two U.N. roles.

Most of the rest of his UN career was focused on Sudan and South Sudan, where he had been head of the peacekeeping mission since 2021 except for a brief stint in Somalia.

But his life was not all about law. In 1987, he won the South Africa Playwright of the Year award for his play “The Native Who Caused All the Trouble”.

Haysom is survived by his wife Delphine and their two sons Charles and Hector, as well as three older children, Rebecca, Simone, and Julian, from his previous marriage to Mary Ann Cullinan.