Winnie Mandela dies after a long illness
▶ Tributes paid to the wife of anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela when he was jailed on Robben Island
Winnie Mandela, the former wife of South African antiapartheid icon Nelson Mandela, died yesterday, triggering an outpouring of tributes to one of the country’s defining and most divisive figures. She was 81.
She died in a Johannesburg hospital after a long illness, family spokesman Victor Dlamini said.
Winnie Mandela, who was married to Nelson Mandela for 38 years, played a high-profile role in the struggle to end white-minority rule but her place in history was stained by controversy and accusations of violence.
“It is with profound sadness that we inform the public that Mrs Winnie Madikizela-Mandela passed away on Monday,” the family said.
“She died after a long illness, for which she had been in and out of hospital since the start of the year. She succumbed peacefully, surrounded by her family and loved ones.”
Leading the tributes, antiapartheid campaigner and Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu described Winnie Mandela as “a defining symbol” of the struggle against oppression.
“She refused to be bowed by the imprisonment of her husband, the perpetual harassment of her family by security forces, detentions, bannings and banishment,” he said.
“Her courageous defiance was deeply inspirational to me, and to generations of activists.”
In the ruling African National Congress, head of policy Jeff Radebe described her as “an icon of the revolutionary struggle”.
Most of Winnie’s marriage to Nelson was spent apart, with Nelson imprisoned for 27 years, leaving her to raise their two daughters alone and to keep alive his political dream under the repressive white minority regime.
But her reputation came under severe scrutiny in the twilight years of apartheid rule.
In 1986, she was widely linked to necklacing, a practice where alleged traitors were burnt alive by putting a petrol-soaked car tyre over their head and setting it alight.
In 1990 the world watched when Nelson Mandela finally walked out of prison – hand in hand with Winnie. But the next year she was convicted of kidnapping and assault over the killing of 14-year-old activist Stompie Moeketsi.
In 1992, the Mandelas separated, and then divorced in 1996, after a legal wrangle that revealed she had had an affair with a young bodyguard.
During her old age, she reemerged as a “mother of the nation” figure who was feted as a living reminder of the late Mandela and the long struggle against apartheid.
Only last month she was shown in television footage joking with Cyril Ramaphosa – the country’s new president after accusations of corruption forced out Jacob Zuma – who paid a courtesy call at her home in Soweto, the township where she lived for decades.
Winnie Mandela’s courageous defiance was deeply inspirational to me, and to generations of activists DESMOND TUTU anti-apartheid campaigner