A loving tribute penned by Donna in memory of her Tom (Part 2)

After his return from Turkey in 2001, Tom served as Chief Director: Latin America in the Department of Foreign Affairs from 2001 to 2003 when he retired – for 16 hours. The next day, Tom began his second career as Chief Operating Officer for the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA). 

It was the perfect retirement job. It kept Tom connected to and participating in the international community and allowed him to do what he did so well: facilitating connections between people and being a living resource of information. He was always generous with his time and more than willing to aid those doing research on South Africa’s international relations.

Over the next 11 years of his “step-down retirement,” at SAIIA one of his roles would be in media relations. This gave Tom the opportunity to realize, indirectly, his early dream of becoming a radio announcer when he began to provide media commentary for numerous radio and TV channels. Later he was asked to write a weekly commentary on some international issue (under his own byline) for The New Age newspaper. 

The connections he made through working at SAIIA and his new persona as a “journalist” provided yet more opportunities to travel.

In 2006 he visited Germany as a guest of the Foreign Ministry. In 2013 he visited Hungary and Azerbaijan as a guest of their Foreign Ministries, Ireland as a tourist and France to speak at a conference in Paris held as part of the South African Weeks programme. He attended the Africa Forums of the Turkish Asia Security Research Centre (TASAM) in 2008, 2009, 2012 and 2013. He was invited by the Turkish government to attend the Prime Ministerial Media Forum in Ankara in 2102 as one of five South African journalists. He was invited to participate as a journalist in 2011 in the Israeli President’s Conference on Facing Tomorrow. 

He even dappled into the academic world. Tom lectured at the South African National Defence College, at Witwatersrand University’s Department of International Relations, and for the Foreign Service Institute of the Department of Foreign Affairs he presented a short course to South Sudanese diplomats in training at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth in May 2011.

He spoke on South Africa and Turkey: a long and multifaceted relationship at the International Society for Cultural History at Monash University in Johannesburg in 27 November 2014.  He addressed the Council on Foreign Relations in Mexico City on Central Asia on 24 July 2007.

In addition to his career, Tom belonged to numerous Rotary clubs and in multiple countries: Sydney, Australia; New York; Washington DC; Ankara, Turkey; Pretoria and Johannesburg. He was President of his Rotary Clubs in Pretoria and Johannesburg and an Assistant Governor.

Among the many publications he wrote after joining SAIIA are a monograph entitled The Development of Relations between Turkey and South Africa 1860-2005, and a chapter on Central Asia and the Caspian Region: Their significance for South Africa which appeared in the SA Yearbook of International Affairs 2006/7. An article entitled Ankara to Africa: Turkey’s Outreach to Africa since 2005 was published in the South African Journal of International Affairs in April 2011. He has also contributed several short articles on Turkish – South African relations which are available on the website www.saiia.org.za.

But the story was always the most important thing for Tom. He loved telling the stories of his career to young researchers and the tales of our adventures together to anyone who would listen.

When Tom and his former DFA colleagues, Pieter Wolvaardt and Werner Scholtz realized that many of the stories of those who had served in the old South African Department of Foreign Affairs were being lost, the three solicited and complied many of those account into a trilogy of books. These were published under the title From Verwoerd to Mandela: South African Diplomats Remember (March 2011).

It was an attempt to get more of those stories preserved and made available to a wider audience that was the inspiration behind this blog. It was a joint effort: Tom found material; I scanned documents into readable files; Tom cleaned them up and then sent on to “Tom’s Techie,” Geoff van Heerden, for uploading onto the site.  

Now, you must send your own stories and keep the conversation going. Each account adds another piece to the picture, making it richer and more nuanced.

Tom loved being a diplomat. He loved meeting people, having conversations, traveling, mentoring others, and hearing and telling the stories.

And I will always love him. He gave me a world I would never have known without him. Please – tell the rest of the stories for him and each other.

Donna Wyckoff-Wheeler

Johannesburg, 19 May 2017

A loving tribute penned by Donna in memory of her Tom (Part 1)

On 18 May 2017, my beloved husband, Tom Wheeler, went into went into cardiac arrest about 6 AM and died a few minutes later. He had been in Intensive Care at Rosebank Clinic in Johannesburg for the past 10 days, battling multiple infections and other issues after a year of declining health. Part of what some follows comes from my own memories of our time together; part from a CV Tom had prepared himself (although I’ve tried to humanize some of the austere document language). The time elements jump around a bit, but the dates should provide context.

Tom was born in Cape Town on 27 October 1938. He graduated from the University of Stellenbosch in 1959, and after a year as a government translator, joined the South African Foreign Service in 1961.

During his forty-two year career as a South African diplomat he served in Washington (twice 1963/8, 1988/9 – the latter as Minister/Deputy Chief of Mission); Blantyre, Malawi; London; Sydney, Australia; New York (Consul-General). His last foreign posting was to Ankara, Turkey (1997- 2001) as Ambassador to Turkey, and as non-residential Ambassador to Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.

In between foreign postings, Tom served as Chief Director: Global Security, Disarmament and Arms Control and also in other disciplines such as Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, and the Environment, Science and Technology for various periods between 1993 and 1997. 

He was involved in developing a procedure for the vetting of applications for arms sales abroad and the initial stages of the drafting of a White Paper on peacekeeping policy. 

Between 1990 and 1997 he was closely involved in various aspects of the process of the transition to democracy, transformation of the South African foreign service, and the return of South Africa to the UN and other multilateral organizations. This last issue resulted in Tom sitting in the presidential chair in the UN General Assembly during a debate on renewing the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. It was a privilege he cherished in his memory.

Tom was also a member of South African delegations to a variety of international conferences, including: the UN Conference on Population and Development, Cairo, 1994; the OAU Special Ministerial Meeting in Cairo in 1995; President Mandela’s delegation to the UN General Assembly in 1994; the NPT Review and Extension Conference in New York in 1995 (de facto leader); and the Central Asian Nuclear Weapons Free Zone Conference in Tashkent in 1997.

He visited India (including Bangalore) in November 1996 as a member of Deputy President Mbeki’s delegation and headed the bilateral political discussions as part of the Joint Commission meeting in New Delhi.

Over the years, Tom also traveled extensively in Africa: Malawi, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Namibia, Madagascar, Kenya, Ethiopia, Cote d’Ivoire, Uganda, Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and more recently Sudan and Ghana.

Tom and I met in Ankara, Turkey (where I was teaching in the Department of Culture and Literature at Başkent University) and we were married there in 2000. The short version of the story, which he loved to tell, was “We met at church, drank tea, and got married.” There were, of course, many chapters between tea and marriage, and many more stories as well.

During this time, Tom and I travelled extensively in Central Asia and in the Middle East – Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Syria and Northern Cyprus – sometimes for work; sometimes for pleasure. And there were many more travels to follow.

One of Tom’s great joys was going somewhere he’d not been before. He loved traveling by car and rated a holiday by the proportion of time spent in the car versus out of it. More time in meant more places he could see. I saw (more or less) 7,000 km of South Africa in 10 days the first time I visited this magnificent county.

In 1977 and 1979 he was a member of the South African delegations to the Antarctic Treaty Consultative meetings in London and Washington, the negotiation of the Convention on the Regulation of Antarctic Mineral Resources (CRAMR) in Washington in 1979 – adopted but never ratified.

He was a member of the South African delegation that adopted the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, CCAMLR, in Canberra in 1980, and is a South African signatory to the Convention. He was a member of the South African delegation to the inaugural meeting of the Commission in Hobart, Tasmania in 1982Hobert, Tasmania in 1982 and agaiHobH and at the meeting in 1986. He led the South African delegation to the 18th Antarctic Consultative Meeting in Kyoto, Japan in 1994.

One of the highlights of Tom’s career was to go to Antarctica aboard the SA Agulhas during the 1983 summer season. The trip included the SANAE III base and the newly established German base Georg von Neumayer.

Antarctica had been a life-long interest for Tom, and amongst the 8000 or so books in our house at the moment, many are on Antarctica. This interest culminated in research paper on South Africa’s involvement in Antarctica paper. Written jointly with Elizabeth Sidiropoulos (Chief Executive of SAIIA), it is entitled “To the Ends of the Earth: Antarctica, the Antarctic Treaty and South Africa. (RESEARCH REPORT 23, March 2016).

Tom also delivered an address on Antarctica and the Blue Economy at a conference jointly hosted by the Institute for Global Dialogue and DIRCO at the Department in Pretoria in 2014

Donna Wyckoff-Wheeler

Johannesburg, 19 May 2017

Memorial Service notice

The Wheeler family would like to express our sincere gratitude for the enormous outpouring of heartfelt messages and support that we have receive in this time of grief.

Tom touched so many lives, and we are extremely grateful to have had him in ours. He will be dearly missed by many.

There will be a memorial service tomorrow (Thursday 25 May) 14h00 at St. Columba’s Presbyterian Church, 45 Lurgan Road, Parkview, Johannesburg.

In lieu of flowers, we would love for donations to be made to the Rotary Foundation in Tom’s honour. Please put “For Tom” in the payment reference line and “Peace Fellowship” as the designation of contribution.

Back transfer:

HSBC Bank PLC – Johannesburg Branch

2 Exchange Square, 85 Maude Street, Sandown, Sandton 2196, South Africa (necessary for overseas payments)

Beneficiary Name: Rotary Foundation

Account Number: 121007504001.  Or: 21007504001 (If alternative 11-digit code must be used)

Branch Code: 587000

SWIFT (BIC) Code: HSBCZAJJ

Currency: South African Rand (ZAR)

Payment Reference:

Donor Name: For Tom 

Designation of contribution: Peace Fellowship

Flag ceremony at the United Nations offices in New York

                                      

Congratulations! Mr Reggie Khumala, PAC Representative at the UN shakes hands with SA Ambassador Jim Steward. On the right is Kingsley Makhubeia, Deputy Permanent Representative of the ANC at the UN.

                                   

The new South African flag is raised on 27 April 1994.

Allen Shardelow, New York 

 Meintjeskop Courier, Volume EE, 1994

Recent events at the United Nations have indeed been historic from South Africa's perspective. The old "apartheid" South African flag was lowered for the last time at the United Nations on Tuesday. 26 April 1994. On Wednesday, 27 April 1994, the new flag was raised in the presence of South Africa's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Jim Steward, Mr Reggie Khumalo (PAC Chief Representative to the UN), and Mr Kingsley Makhubela (ANC Deputy Chief Representative to the UN). 

The event was marked by much brotherly hugging and back-slapping. Those colleagues who have served at the UN in the past, and certainly those currently stationed in New York, must surely have wondered at how the UN environment had changed. Erstwhile enemies were now standing arm in arm witnessing the birth of the new South Africa on the very ground of the Organisation that had once declared "Apartheid a crime against humanity".

Their task completed, the lights are out and the shutters drawn at the ANC and PAC Observer Missions to the United Nations. The former Chief Representative of the ANC to the UN, Mr Tebogo Mafole, returned to his former stamping grounds on 25 and 26 May 1994, as part of Deputy President Mbeki's delegation to attend the Security Council meeting ,which lifted the mandatory arms embargo against South Africa. 

At that meeting, the delegation sitting behind South Africa's name-plate in the Security Council comprised Deputy-President Mbeki, Deputy Minister Aziz Pahad, the Director-General Mr LH Evans, Mr T Mafole and Ambassador Jim Steward.

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The final step in our reintegration into the UN took place on 23 June 1994 when South Africa's delegation to the United Nations, led by Foreign Minister Alfred Nzo, took South Africa's seat in the General Assembly to warm applause from the delegates of 184 nations. Mr Mafole was again present. He just cannot seem to stay away.

The task ahead for the Permanent Mission at the UN is an enormous one. We have taken our place in the various regional groups (NAM. Africa Group and the Group of 77), and now have to ensure that our views on a plethora of international issues are heard.

Everybody at the United Nations is an observer. Image and association are all important. News of who was seen in whose company is furtively exchanged in the corridors while the subject of their conversation is speculated on. South Africa's diplomats will not escape this scrutiny. Much will no doubt be said and speculated on as we go about our task of being an African country while attempting to maintain our bridge to the Western World.

Interesting and challenging times certainly lie in ambush.

With greetings from a hot and humid New York.