Mtintso, Thenjiwe (1950–)

Thenjiwe Mtintso is currently a member of the African National Congress (ANC) National Executive Committee and South Africa's ambassador to Cuba. She was in exile from 1978 to 1992 and held positions in the underground political and military structures of the ANC. She was elected to Parliament in 1994 and has served in leadership structures in the South African Communist Party (SACP) and in the ANC, including deputy secretary-general. She was the first chairperson of the Commission on Gender Equality and is now chair of the board of Gender Links.

Mtintso was born on November 7, 1950, in Soweto, South Africa, the daughter of Hanna Mtintso, a domestic worker, and the trade unionist and ANC activist Gana Makabeni. She left formal education to help support the family, completing her schooling by correspondence courses while working in factories. In 1972, she went to Fort Hare University on scholarship and joined the South African Student Association (SASO). She was expelled for political activities, moved to King Williams Town and worked with Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) leaders Steve Biko and Mamphela Ramphele. She worked in the BCM as a political organizer and as a reporter for the Daily[Page 982]Dispatch under Donald Woods. She was subjected to banning, detentions, solitary confinement, and severe torture by the South African police during the 1970s. After Biko's murder, she went into exile with her son, Lumumba, in 1978.

In Lesotho, Mtintso joined the ANC, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), and the South African Communist Party (SACP). After receiving military training, she worked with the Regional Politico-Military Council in Lesotho, from 1986 to 1989 as head of the Regional Politico-Military Council (RPMC) in Botswana, and from 1989 to 1991 as the ANC's first chief representative to Uganda.

In South Africa in 1991 Mtintso was elected to the SACP Central Committee and Political Bureau. She was an SACP delegate to the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA). She was elected in 1994 as a member of Parliament in the first multiracial government, but she turned down an offer of a ministry and chose not to contest the seat again. She was elected to the ANC National Executive Committee in 1994, 1997, and 2002. In March 1997 she was appointed as the first chair of the Commission on Gender Equality but resigned after election in December as the first woman ANC deputy secretary-general. In 2004 she resigned from that position, partly because of continuing health problems caused by her torture, and accepted an assignment as ambassador to Cuba.

Mtintso holds a master's degree in public development and management from the University of the Witwatersrand, with a thesis on women in politics. She is chair of the Board of Gender Links, a feminist nongovernmental organization, and a frequent speaker and writer on gender politics. She participated in organizing the new South African Progressive Women's Movement and spoke at its launch on August 9, 2006, the 50th anniversary of the Pretoria Women's March, the day celebrated as South Africa Women's Day.