Activist Winnie Mandela dies at 81
FLAWED MOTHER OF THE NATION: WINNIE MANDELA 1936-2018
WINNIE Mandela, the iconic anti-apartheid fighter and ex-wife of South Africa’s first black president, died yesterday.
The long-time ANC activist passed away in a hospital in Johannesburg aged 81.
Winnie was an outspoken campaigner who became known as the “Mother of the Nation” because of her struggle against white minority rule.
In 1990, she was famously photographed hand-in-hand with Nelson Mandela as he walked free from jail after 27 years.
But while her husband became the hero of the Rainbow Nation, Winnie’s legacy was tainted in her later years amid convictions for kidnap, assault and fraud.
Yet tributes still flooded in for her from across the world last night.
Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu praised her as a “defining symbol of the
Tributes after anti-apartheid icon dies at the age of 81
struggle against apartheid”, adding: “Her courageous defiance was deeply inspirational to me and to generations of activists.”
South African president Cyril Ramaphosa said: “With the departure of Mama Winnie we have lost one of the very few who are left of our stalwarts and icons.
“She was one of those who would tell us exactly what is wrong and right, and we are going to be missing that guidance.”
Labour MP and anti-apartheid campaigner Grahame Morris said: “Winnie Mandela was a leading political figure in her own right and a key player in the liberation struggle in South Africa. In her time, she endured arrest, persecution and torture at the hands of the racist apartheid regime.
“Unfortunately, she was later overshadowed by many scandals, which tarnished many of the things she had achieved.
“But her work in fighting against apartheid will be remembered forever in history.”
Announcing the death, Winnie’s 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 on Monday afternoon surrounded by her family and loved ones.”
The family added: “She fought valiantly against the apartheid state and sacrificed her life for the freedom of the country.
“Her activism and resistance to apartheid landed her in jail on numerous occasions, eventually causing her banishment to the small town of Brandfort in the then Orange Free State.
“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 its most recognisable faces.
“She dedicated most of her adult life to the cause of the people and for this was known far and wide as the Mother of the Nation.
“The Mandela family are deeply grateful for the gift of her life and even as our hearts break at her passing, we urge all those who loved her to celebrate this most remarkable woman.”
Winnie attended a five-hour church service in Soweto on Good Friday with her granddaughter Zoleka. But she complained of flu-like symptoms over the weekend before being admitted to hospital.
She was born in 1936 in the Eastern Cape and was a social worker when she met Mandela, then a lawyer, in 1957.
They got married a year later and had two children.
Mandela was arrested in 1963
and sentenced to life imprisonment for treason. During her husband’s time in prison‚ Winnie was subjected to the relentless attentions of the brutal apartheid forces.
In 1969, she became one of the first detainees under Section 6 of the notorious Terrorism Act of 1967.
She was held for 18 months in solitary confinement in a cell at Pretoria Central Prison.
Winnie was also placed under house arrest and was banished to remote Brandfort from 1977 to 1985.
At a rally in 1986, she supported “necklacing” – a method of killing often used against suspected police informants in which a petrol-soaked tyre was forced around someone’s body and then set alight.
She said: “We have no guns – we have only stones, boxes of matches and petrol.
“Together, hand in hand, with our boxes of matches and our necklaces, we shall liberate this country.”
The speech caused an outcry, particularly in western capitals.
As she became a pivotal figure in the anti-apartheid movement, there were accusations of abuse of power.
In the dying years of apartheid, evidence emerged of the brutality meted out by her Soweto enforcers, the “Mandela United Football Club”.
In 1991, she was convicted of kidnapping and being an accessory to assault after 14-year-old Stompie Moeketsi was killed by one of her bodyguards in 1989.
Winnie was sentenced to six years in jail but on appeal this was reduced to a fine and a two-year suspended sentence.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, chaired by Tutu, found she was “politically and morally accountable for the gross violations of human rights committed by the MUFC”.
After South Africa’s first democratic election in 1994‚ Winnie became an MP and was appointed deputy minister of arts and culture.
She was fired by Mandela the next year after an unauthorised trip to Ghana. The couple were estranged by this point and got divorced in 1996. In 2003, Winnie was sentenced to five years after she was found guilty of stealing £85,000 from the ANC Women’s League.
Again, she avoided prison when her sentence was first reduced and then suspended entirely because of what the judge described as her “difficult role in public life”.
Winnie remained an MP until her death. In 2016‚ she received an official honour for her contribution to the “fight for the liberation of the people of South Africa”. And while her role in South Africa’s history will be debated for decades to come, she was an idol to many.
Last night, actor Idris Elba, who played her ex-husband in Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, tweeted: “Rest in peace Mama Winnie. My heart is heavy right now.
“You lived a full and important life contributing to the liberation of a nation by force and ACTUAL ACTIVISM.
“You will never be forgotten.”
Her courage and defiance was deeply inspirational to me and to generations of activists DESMOND TUTU