Cosmas Desmond (19 November 1935 – 31 March 2012) was a

Catholic priest The priesthood is the office of the ministers of religion, who have been commissioned ("ordained") with the Holy orders of the Catholic Church. Technically, bishops are a priestly order as well; however, in layman's terms ''priest'' refers only ...

, an activist and an author who lived in England and South Africa. He is particularly well known for his opposition to forced removals in South Africa under the system of

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

Family

Born Patrick Anthony Desmond, he was the seventh of eleven children to a family of Irish Catholics in London's

East End The East End of London, often referred to within the London area simply as the East End, is the historic core of wider East London, east of the Roman and medieval walls of the City of London and north of the River Thames. It does not have uni ...

. His father worked as a fumigator.

Missionary Work

Desmond received scholarships from several Catholic schools and became a

Franciscan , image = FrancescoCoA PioM.svg , image_size = 200px , caption = A cross, Christ's arm and Saint Francis's arm, a universal symbol of the Franciscans , abbreviation = OFM , predecessor = , ...

missionary, travelling to South Africa at the age of 21. He was assigned to a mission in

KwaZulu-Natal KwaZulu-Natal (, also referred to as KZN and known as "the garden province") is a province of South Africa that was created in 1994 when the Zulu bantustan of KwaZulu ("Place of the Zulu" in Zulu) and Natal Province were merged. It is loca ...

. There he witnessed a number of forced removals of black residents under the

Group Areas Act Group Areas Act was the title of three acts of the Parliament of South Africa enacted under the apartheid government of South Africa. The acts assigned racial groups to different residential and business sections in urban areas in a system of ...

, which sought to preserve racial segregation along geographic lines. In 1969, Desmond traveled to

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a Megacity#List of megacities, megacity, and is List of urban areas by p ...

to speak out against the practice. In the city, he befriended a number of black militants, including

Steve Biko Bantu Stephen Biko (18 December 1946 – 12 September 1977) was a South African anti-apartheid activist. Ideologically an African nationalist and African socialist, he was at the forefront of a grassroots anti-apartheid campaign known a ...

The Discarded People

In 1970, he published a book on forced removals under the titled ''The Discarded People''. In its preface, British ambassador

Hugh Foot, Baron Caradon Hugh Mackintosh Foot, Baron Caradon (8 October 1907 – 5 September 1990) was a British colonial administrator and diplomat who was Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the United Nations and the last governor of British Cyprus. E ...

described it as "an account of callous contempt for human suffering, the ugliness of systematic cruelty, and the self-righteousness of the oppressor" and a book that could change the course of history. The book triggered a wave of international attention to forced removals, including a documentary film titled '' Last Grave in Dimbaza''. The book was soon banned in South Africa, and Desmond himself was subject to

house arrest In justice and law, house arrest (also called home confinement, home detention, or, in modern times, electronic monitoring) is a measure by which a person is confined by the authorities to their residence. Travel is usually restricted, if ...

under the

Suppression of Communism Act The Suppression of Communism Act, 1950 (Act No. 44 of 1950), renamed the Internal Security Act in 1976, was legislation of the national government in apartheid South Africa which formally banned the Communist Party of South Africa and proscribed ...

. Amnesty International named him a prisoner of conscience. As the church hierarchy disapproved of his activism, Desmond resigned from the priesthood in 1973. He later married human rights activist Snoeks Desmond, with whom he had three sons, but remained a Catholic.

Exile

He left South Africa in 1978 after the assassination of Richard Turner and returned to London where he worked for Amnesty International, heading its British section. After eighteen months, he was fired in a "power struggle" between volunteers and staff. He returned to South African in 1991 and in 1994 stood for parliament as a

Pan Africanist Congress The Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (known as the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC)) is a South African national liberation Pan-Africanist movement that is now a political party. It was founded by an Africanist group, led by Robert Sobukwe, that ...

candidate, but was not elected.

Return to South Africa

After the end of apartheid, Desmond continued to advocate for the welfare of the poor, arguing that apartheid had not truly ended but had "a makeover and bought some new clothes". He felt that the leaders of post-apartheid South Africa had betrayed the trust of the anti-apartheid movement, particularly by failing to redistribute land on a large scale. Late in life, he headed the human rights branch of the NGO Children First, editing the organization's journal. In 2012, he died of

Alzheimer's Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in remembering recent events. As ...

complications in Durban.

References

External links

Audio interviews at the British University Film and Video Collection
{{DEFAULTSORT:Desmond, Cosmas 1935 births 2012 deaths Amnesty International prisoners of conscience held by South Africa People from Stepney English activists 20th-century English Roman Catholic priests 21st-century English Roman Catholic priests South African housing rights activists South African activists British people imprisoned abroad