The Order of Ikhamanga in Silver

Mr Khaba Mkhize (Posthumous) Awarded for:

His excellent contribution to the field of journalism and the liberation struggle. Through his writings as a journalist, he bravely exposed many apartheid injustices and pricked the consciences of the unjust lawmakers of the time.

Profile of Khaba Mkhize

Mr Khaba Mkhize was a renowned and respected veteran journalist, who studied journalism at the Thomson Foundation in the United Kingdom. He ran a community newspaper in the heart of the war-torn KwaZulu-Natal Midlands, in the 1980s, arguably one of the most dangerous jobs in the world at the time.

He was the editor of the Pietermaritzburg-based Echo newspaper from 1985 to 1991, when the civil war between Inkatha Yenkululeko Yesizwe/Inkatha Freedom Party and the United Democratic Front/African National Congress was at its height.

He later served as an assistant editor of the Natal Witness newspaper in Pietermaritzburg. He also served as regional manager of the SABC in KwaZulu-Natal.

Mkhize was also President of the Association of Democratic Journalists, which actively supported peace initiatives in KwaZulu-Natal. His Echo newspaper groomed, trained and produced journalists as well as young poets.
 
His selfless mentoring raised a generation of great thinkers and courageous journalists. He believed that to be a good journalist the story of the killings in townships had to be told and the late night media junkets he held enabled him to get the stories very few would obtain.

He also used art and drama to promote peace and to build a better society. He established a threatre group called Die Bafanas, and produced plays such as PityMaritburg and Hobo the Man, which told the story of the time. Mkhize believed in promoting ubuntu and in creating a better society.