Mandela family return bodies to village
Police broke into a compound owned by Nelson Mandela’s grandson yesterday to exhume the remains of three of the former president’s children, which are at the centre of a bitter family feud.
Officers in three cars escorted a hearse, a team of gravediggers and several Mandela relatives to the compound in Mvezo, in the Eastern Cape, after a High Court ruling that the remains should be returned to their original resting place about 40 kilometres away.
Mandla Mandela, an MP for the ruling African National Congress and the eldest grandson of the celebrated statesman, had the bodies – one of them his late father – moved to Mvezo in 2011.
He was building a £4 million (NZ$7.8m) visitors’ centre and hoped his grandfather would one day be buried there too.
The centre includes a hotel and conference centre and is still being built. Other members of the Mandela clan have accused him of seeking to cash in on the pilgrims who will seek out the former president’s final resting place.
The court decision paves the way for Nelson Mandela, who remains critically ill in hospital, to be buried alongside his children in Qunu, the village where he retired, and which he has said holds his earliest and happiest childhood memories.
Wesley Hayes, a lawyer acting for more than a dozen Mandela relatives, said they were delighted with the court’s ruling.
Mandla, who was appointed head of the Mandela clan in 2007, said he would abide by the decision, but pledged to ‘‘fight for his right to put on record his side of the story’’.
He was not present to hear the judge’s ruling, nor was he at home yesterday when police arrived.
They led undertakers and medical orderlies to a site inside the heavily guarded compound overlooking the Mvezo river. Hours later, the bodies were on their way back to a mortuary in Mthatha.
Mandla’s aunt, Makaziwe, led more than a dozen Mandela relatives who accused him of moving the bodies without permission. Police said they were investigating allegations of grave-tampering.
His niece, Ndileka, who was also at the exhumations, said Mandla was ‘‘a pig’’. His halfbrother Ndaba told a local newspaper Mandla was ‘‘power-hungry and self-obsessed’’. Both were in court in Mthatha to hear theruling.
‘‘In the past few days [Mandla Mandela] has had a lot of allegations and dirt thrown in his direction by all sorts of individuals baying for a few minutes of fame and media attention at his expense,’’ Mandla’s spokesman said in a statement in which he pledged to clear his name.
The exhumed bodies were those of Makaziwe, who died of meningitis aged 9 months, in 1948; Thembi, 24, who died in a car crash in 1969; and Magkatho, Mandla’s father, who died of Aids in 2005 aged 55.
Makaziwe and Ndileka hugged their lawyers in the courtroom when the judge announced his decision.
‘‘I’ve told you before this was a private matter. It will remain a private matter,’’ Ndileka told reporters.
Makaziwe summoned elders and relatives for an urgent family meeting in Qunu last week. Mandla reportedly stormed out when pressured to return the bodies, amid fears that his grandfather was on the brink of death.
Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years in prison, was admitted to hospital on June 8, suffering from a recurrent lung infection. It was his fourth admission since December.
Relatives said that he was too ill for a visit from US President Barack Obama, who was touring the region last weekend.
Mandela retired from public life in 1999 and has not been seen in public since 2010, when South Africa hosted the football World Cup.