Tributes flow in for Ivan Toms

2008-03-25 19:01

Cape Town - Tributes are flowing in for Director of Health Ivan Toms after he was found dead in his home in the city on Tuesday morning.

"He was a fighter against apartheid and for human and democratic rights," said the African National Congress's Western Cape secretary, Mcebisi Skwatsha.

"The passing of Ivan Toms is a great loss to the people of the city, the province and the country."

City Mayor Helen Zille said she and her colleagues would sorely miss Toms.

"Our organisation has lost one of its most-talented leaders," she said.

City manager Achmat Ebrahim said police were alerted when Toms did not did not turn up for a regular top management meeting on Tuesday morning.

His only living relative, a brother who lived in Australia, had been notified via satellite phone on board a cruise ship near Hawaii.

No funeral arrangements had been made.

Set up clinic at Crossroads

Police spokesperson Billy Jones said foul play was not suspected at this stage.

Toms, who was 55, completed a medical degree at the University of Cape Town before being conscripted in 1978 for national service in the defence force, which he performed as a non-combatant doctor.

On his return to Cape Town, he played a leading role in setting up a much-needed clinic in the burgeoning squatter settlement of Crossroads, 15km outside Cape Town.

The brutalities committed by members of the apartheid security forces in trying to clear the area of shacks made Toms decide that he would never again serve in the army.

He became a founder member of the End Conscription Campaign, and in 1985 fasted for three weeks in Cape Town's St George's Cathedral in support of the campaign's call for troops not to be deployed in black townships.

He said: "As a Christian, I am obliged to say no, to say never again will I put on that SADF uniform."

He, like other members of the campaign, was subjected to systematic intimidation and harassment by a defence force dirty-tricks brigade, including posters that targeted Toms's homosexuality.

In 1987, he defied call up for a one-month SADF camp, symbolically handing in his uniform at the reporting depot.

For this, he served nine months in jail at Pollsmoor Prison.

Was awarded Order of the Baobab

In 1991, Toms became a national co-ordinator for the National Progressive Primary Healthcare Network, responsible for developing an Aids programme.

In 1996, he moved into local government and, in 1999, was appointed Cape Town's Director of Health, where he led the battle against tuberculosis and HIV/Aids, which included pioneering use of antiretrovirals.

Toms was also an outspoken advocate of gay rights.

Two years ago, President Thabo Mbeki awarded him the Order of the Baobab, in recognition of what the citation said was his "outstanding contribution to the struggle against apartheid and sexual discrimination".

- SAPA