Winnie Mandela a ‘strong, fearless’ voice
SOWETO: Winnie MadikizelaMandela, who emerged as a combative antiapartheid campaigner during her husband Nelson Mandela’s decades in jail but whose reputation was later tarnished by allegations of violence, died yesterday at the age of 81.
MadikizelaMandela died peacefully surrounded by her family following a long illness that kept her in and out of hospital since the start of the year, family spokesman Victor Dlamini said. Neither cause of death nor nature of her illness were disclosed.
‘‘Winnie Mandela leaves a huge legacy and, as we say in African culture, a gigantic tree has fallen,’’ President Cyril Ramaphosa said after visiting MadikizelaMandela’s house in Soweto, where he was surrounded by singing mourners.
‘‘She has been one of the strongest women in our struggle, who suffered immensely under the apartheid regime, who was imprisoned, who was banished, who was treated very badly,’’ he said.
An official memorial service will be held for MadikizelaMandela on April 11 and a national funeral on April 14, said Ramaphosa, who declared South Africans had lost ‘‘a mother, a grandmother, a friend, a comrade, a leader and an icon.’’
Ministers and national figures paid tribute, including retired South African cleric and antiapartheid campaigner Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who said: ‘‘Her courageous defiance was deeply inspirational to me, and to generations of activists.’’
United Nations Secretarygeneral Antonio Guterres was among those who offered his condolences from abroad, according to UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric.
‘‘The Secretarygeneral is saddened by the passing of Ms Winnie Madikizela Mandela, a leading figure at the forefront of the fight against apartheid in South Africa.
‘‘She was a strong and fearless voice in the struggle for equal rights and will be remembered as a symbol of resistance,’’ he said.
She was born on September 26, 1936, in Bizana, Eastern Cape province and became politicised at an early age in her job as a hospital social worker.
Winnie caught the eye of Nelson Mandela at a Soweto busstop in 1957, starting a whirlwind romance that led to their getting married a year later.
After Nelson Mandela was jailed for life in 1964 for sabotage and plotting to overthrow the Government, MadikizelaMandela campaigned tirelessly for his release and emerged as a prominent antiapartheid figure in her own right.
A crowning moment came in 1994, to the end of centuries of white domination when Mandela became South Africa’s first black president. — Reuters