Apartheid challenger. Bishop Desmond Tutu’s biographer. Friend of Nelson Mandela. Fighter for justice. Dauntless South African journalist. Allister Sparks – RIP. He was 83.
Sparks was the editor of South African newspaper The Rand Daily Mail.
This paper was the voice of liberal opposition to the white Pretoria government and a champion of majority rule.
Spark was working for it when he revealed apartheid opponent Steve Biko was beaten to death by the police in 1977.
Spark’s paper later exposed a secret offensive by the authorities against the mainstream news media.
It showed a slush fund was used to establish a government-friendly newspaper, The Citizen, to counter The Rand Daily Mail.
The fund was also used to buy stakes in other publications.
That led to the resignation of President John Vorster in 1979.
In 1981 The Rand Daily Mail owners fired Mr. Sparks.
It was part of an effort to “lower the paper’s voice and to shift the emphasis more toward white readers and less toward black readers.”
The newspaper went out of business in 1985.
Mr. Sparks went on to become a war correspondent in South Africa for The Washington Post and The Observer in Britain.
He covered the violence between the government and the United Democratic Front.
The United Democratic Front was the leading anti-apartheid group.
Mr. Sparks was nearly prosecuted for quoting Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.
Her husband Nelson Mandela was the imprisoned leader of the African National Congress.
He befriended Mr. Mandela.
He interviewed Mandela and wrote a 20,000-word article for The New Yorker in 1994.
The article “The Secret Revolution,” was about the negotiations that ended white minority rule.
Mr. Sparks later served under President Nelson Mandela.
He was Mandela’s television news and current affairs editor for the South African Broadcasting Corporation.
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