H.E. Dr Barry Gilder served on the national executive of the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS) from 1974-75 and in 1976 went into exile, initially to the UK, to avoid serving with the apartheid army during its invasion of Angola. He joined the ANC in London and in 1979 joined its armed wing Umkhonto we Sizwe. From 1983 to 1989 he served in the underground leadership structures of the ANC in Botswana, then returned to South Africa in 1991 where, from 1992 to 1994, he worked with the Matla Trust, set up by Nelson Mandela to provide voter education to the previously disenfranchised. After the ANC’s 1994 election victory, he was deployed into the newly created state intelligence services, From 2003 to 2005 he also served as director-general of the Department of Home Affairs and from 2019 to 2023 was South Africa’s ambassador to Syria and Lebanon.
