Ian Phillips

Ian Munro Phillips ( – 26 March 2007) was a South African academic, politician, and civil servant. He represented the African National Congress (ANC) in the National Assembly from 1994 to 1996. After that, he was special advisor to Minister Jeff Radebe until his death in 2007. A historian by training, Phillips was formerly a lecturer at the University of Natal between 1987 and 1994. During that period, he and Radebe worked together in the ANC, arming ANC-aligned self-defence units in the Natal province. Early life and academic career Born in Nairobi, Kenya in 1958 or 1959, Phillips trained as a historian, graduating from Rhodes University. He was an academic in the political studies department at the University of Natal's Durban campus from 1987 to 1994, with regional concentrations in Southern Africa and the Soviet Union. Self-defence units Phillips officially joined the ANC in 1990, the year that it was unbanned by the apartheid government. He also joined the South African Communist Party. He served on the executive committee of the ANC's new Durban Central branch until the end of 1990, when he was elected to the party's regional executive committee for Southern Natal. In addition, he was a member of the Military Research Group, the ANC's Johannesburg-based think tank that developed the party's defence policy during the negotiations to end apartheid. In that capacity, he became involved in the political education – and ultimately in the management – of ANC-aligned self-defence units in Natal.