Bruce Douglas Haigh was born on Aug. 6, 1945, in Sydney, Australia. His household later moved to Perth. In 1964, he exaggerated his abilities as an equestrian to be enlisted as a ranch hand within the Kimberley area of northwestern Australia, the place he first encountered Indigenous individuals and cultures.
“There have been Black individuals talking one other language, they have been straightforward with one another, they have been in a majority,” he was quoted as saying in a weblog publish by the creator Julian Cribb. “I felt I used to be in a unique nation. I used to be.”
In addition to his sister, he’s survived by his spouse, Jodie Burnstein; his son, Robert, from his first marriage to Libby Mosley; and his daughters, Samantha and Georgina, from his second marriage. One other son from his first marriage, Angus, died in 2016.
Through the Vietnam Warfare, when Australia was an American ally, he was a conscript with an Australian armored unit. Later, he studied historical past and politics on the College of Western Australia and joined Australia’s diplomatic service.
His first posting was to Pakistan, earlier than he went to South Africa and immersed himself in opposition politics — with out at all times declaring his actions to his personal authorities. “The Australian authorities had no concept of my position in serving to Donald and his household escape South Africa,” Mr. Cribb quoted him as saying.
He went on to different diplomatic assignments in Saudi Arabia and Indonesia and again in Pakistan, the place he’s stated to have befriended Benazir Bhutto, who served twice as prime minister earlier than she was assassinated in 2007. He resigned as a diplomat in 1995 after a quick posting in Sri Lanka. He spent a number of years as a member of an official panel that reviewed the circumstances of individuals looking for asylum.
Mr. Haigh left the panel in 2000 and went on to tilt in opposition to Australian authorities coverage till shortly earlier than his dying.
In one among his ultimate articles this 12 months, he criticized Anthony Albanese, the Australian prime minister, over a safety pact with the US and Britain, saying he was “doggedly and dumbly following within the footsteps of his discredited predecessors.”
