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Foreign Minister Alfred Nzo is pleased to announce the appointment of Mr Welile Augustine Nhlapo to the position of Deputy Director General at the Department of Foreign Affairs, with effect from today.

Mr Nhlapo takes up this position after having served as South Africa's Ambassador to Ethiopia and Permanent Representative to the Organisation of African Unity and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, since January 1995. During his term in Addis Ababa, he also served as South Africa's Non-Resident Ambassador to Djibouti, Eritrea and Sudan. In 1997 he was appointed as South Africa's Special Envoy on Burundi.

Mr Nhlapo, who was born in Alexandra, Johannesburg, on 14 May 1948, was active in the South African Students Organisation where, together with the late Steve Biko and Tebogo Mafole, he co-authored the publication "Black Review" on the activities of black organisations at the time.

After a banning order was served on him in October 1973, Mr Nhlapo went into exile to Botswana in 1974 where he joined the African National Congress, which he served in various capacities.

From 1978 to 1981, he was deputy editor of Sechaba, the official mouthpiece of the ANC and later headed the Youth Section from 1982 to 1987, whereafter he was appointed to the Regional Political Committee of the ANC until 1990.

Mr Nhlapo also served as the ANC's Chief Representative in Botswana from 1991 to 1993, before being appointed as Head of the Political Section in the ANC's Secretary General's office in Shell House. He later joined the ANC's International Affairs Department. In 1994 he served on the Secretariat of the National Inauguration Committee.

Before taking up his post in Addis Ababa, Mr Nhlapo was part of the South African delegation to the 49th United Nations General Assembly in New York, when South Africa was readmitted to the world body.

Issued by Department of Foreign Affairs, Pretoria, 11 December 1998
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