S. African activist, ex-wife of Mandela

JOHANNESBURG — Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, a prominent anti-apartheid activist and the ex-wife of Nelson Mandela, died in a hospital on Monday after a long illness. She was 81.

“She succumbed peacefully in the early hours of Monday afternoon surrounded by her family and loved ones,” Madikizela-Mandela’s family said in a statement.

Madikizela-Mandela was married to Mandela from 1958 to 1996. Mandela, who died in 2013, was imprisoned throughout most of their marriage, and Madikizela-Mandela’s own activism against South Africa’s white minority rule led to her being imprisoned for months and placed under house arrest for years.

“She kept the memory of her imprisoned husband Nelson Mandela alive during his years on Robben Island and helped give the struggle for justice in South Africa one of its most recognizable faces,” the family said.

However, Madikizela-Mandela’s political activism was marred by her conviction in 1991 for kidnapping and assault, for which she was fined. She faced these allegations again during the 1997 hearings before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a panel that investigated apartheid-era crimes.

As a parliamentarian after South Africa’s first all-race elections, she was convicted of fraud.

Still, Madikizela-Mandela remained a venerated figure in the ruling African National Congress, which has led South Africa since the end of apartheid in 1994.

She continued to tell the party “exactly what is wrong and what is right at any time,” said senior party leader Gwede Mantashe.

The Mandela marriage that survived decades of prison bars dissolved with a formal separation in 1992, two years after Nelson Mandela was released.

The couple divorced in 1996, two years after Mandela became president. Mandela accused his wife of infidelity.

Madikizela-Mandela had been in and out of the hospital since the start of the year, according to her family. She had back surgery a year ago.

Nobel laureate and former archbishop Desmond Tutu, a periodic critic of the ruling party over the years, described Madikizela-Mandela as “a defining symbol” of the fight against apartheid.

“She refused to be bowed by the imprisonment of her husband, the perpetual harassment of her family by security forces, detentions, bannings and banishment,” Tutu said. “Her courageous defiance was deeply inspirational to me, and to generations of activists.”