newsNicholas Haysom 1952 -2026 : Freedom fighter and diplomat who helped end apartheid in South Africa
Nicholas Haysom at a Human Rights Conference held at the Victoria Falls in 1996 (Picture: Trevor Grundy)
The South African lawyer and United Nations diplomat Nicholas Roland Leybourne Haysom has died in New York at the age of 73.
Haysom, affectionately known by journalist friends as “Fink,” was schooled at Michaelhouse in Natal, South Africa. He earned a degree in law from the University of Natal and the University of Cape Town where was president of the Students Representative Council. In 2012, he also received an honorary Doctor of Law degree from the University of Cape Town.
In 1976, Haysom became president of the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS) at a time when the anti-apartheid student organization was in disarray following the arrest of many of its leaders.
He was jailed four times by the regime, including periods where he was kept in solitary confinement.
He was a close friend of Nelson Mandela and helped shape the South African constitution after that country’s independence under Mandela’s leadership in 1994.
Nicholas Haysom – a long serving diplomat and peace-planner with the United Nations (UN)
Before his service with the UN, Haysom worked in the South African government as chief legal and constitutional adviser in the Office of the President from 1994 to 1999. He was involved in the Burundi peace talks as chair of the committee negotiating constitutional issues, from 1999 to 2002, under the facilitation of the late former President Nelson Mandela, and was an advisor in Sudanese peace talks from 2002 to 2005.
Haysom was a respected diplomat, scholar and leading figure in the fight to end apartheid in South Africa whose contribution to African freedom will never be forgotten.
– Trevor Grundy