[Reader-list] Nelson Mandela, anti-apartheid icon, dies at 95

[Asit Das]

 Nelson Mandela, anti-apartheid icon, dies at 95Reuters | Dec 6, 2013,
06.36 AM IS

JOHANNESBURG: South African anti-apartheid
hero<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/South-African-anti-apartheid-hero>
 Nelson Mandela <http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Nelson-Mandela>died
aged 95 at his Johannesburg<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Johannesburg>
home
on Thursday after a prolonged lung infection, plunging his nation and the
world into mourning for a man hailed by global leaders as a moral giant.

Although Mandela had been frail and ailing for nearly a year, Zuma's
announcement late on Thursday of the death of the former president and Nobel
Peace Prize <http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Nobel-Peace-Prize>
laureate
shook South Africa.

Tributes began flooding in almost immediately for a man who was an iconic
global symbol of struggle against injustice and of racial reconciliation.

US President Barack
Obama<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Barack-Obama> said
the world had lost "one of the most influential, courageous and profoundly
good human beings that any of us will share time with on this earth".

PM Manmohan Singh
<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Manmohan-Singh> said,
"A giant among men has passed away. This is as much India's loss as South
Africa's. He was a true Gandhian. His life and work will remain a source of
eternal inspiration for generations to come. I join all those who are
praying for his soul."

British Prime Minister David
Cameron<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/David-Cameron> called
Mandela "a hero of our time" and said "a great light has gone out in the
world".

Ordinary South Africans were in shock. "It feels like it's my father who
has died. He was such a good man, who had good values the nation could look
up to. He was a role model unlike our leaders of today," said Annah
Khokhozela, 37, a nanny, speaking in Johannesburg

A somber Zuma made a national broadcast to announce the death of South
Africa's first black president, who emerged from 27 years in apartheid
prisons to help guide Africa's biggest
economy<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Economy>through
bloodshed and turmoil to democracy.

"Fellow South Africans, our beloved Nelson Rolihlahla
Mandela<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Nelson-Mandela>,
the founding president of our democratic nation, has departed," Zuma said
in the nationally televised address.

"Our people have lost a father. Although we knew this day was going to
come, nothing can diminish our sense of a profound and enduring loss. His
tireless struggle for freedom earned him the respect of the world. His
humility, passion and humanity, earned him their love," he added.

*"Giant for justice"*

Mandela would receive a full state funeral, Zuma said, ordering flags to be
flown at half mast.

The UN Security Council was in session when the ambassadors received the
news of Mandela's death. They stopped their meeting and stood for a
minute's silence.

"Nelson Mandela was a giant for justice and a down-to-earth human
inspiration," UN Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Ban-Ki-moon> told
reporters. "Nelson Mandela showed what is possible for our world and within
each one of us if we believe, dream and work together for justice and
humanity."

Obama, the first black American president, described Mandela as an
inspiration: "Like so many around the globe, I cannot fully imagine my own
life without the example that Nelson Mandela set, and so long as I live I
will do what I can to learn from him," he said in a televised address at
the White House <http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/White-House> shortly
after the announcement of Mandela's death.

"A free South Africa at peace with itself - that's an example to the world,
and that's Madiba's legacy to the nation he loved.

Mandela rose from rural obscurity to challenge the might of white minority
apartheid government - a struggle that gave the 20th century one of its
most respected and loved figures.

He was among the first to advocate armed resistance to apartheid in 1960,
but was quick to preach reconciliation and forgiveness when the country's
white minority began easing its grip on power 30 years later.

He was elected president in landmark all-race elections in 1994 and retired
in 1999.

*World's most famous political prisoner*

South Africa's ruling African National
Congress<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/African-National-Congress>
(ANC)
party said the country and the world had lost "a colossus".

"His life gives us the courage to push forward for development and progress
towards ending hunger and poverty," it said in a statement.

He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993, an honor he shared with FW de
Klerk, the white Afrikaner leader who released from jail arguably the
world's most famous political prisoner.

As president, Mandela faced the monumental task of forging a new nation
from the deep racial injustices left over from the apartheid era, making
reconciliation the theme of his time in office.

The hallmark of Mandela's mission was the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Truth-and-Reconciliation-Commission>
which
probed apartheid crimes on both sides of the struggle and tried to heal the
country's wounds. It also provided a model for other countries torn by
civil strife.

In 1999, Mandela handed over power to younger leaders better equipped to
manage a modern economy - a rare voluntary departure from power cited as an
example to African leaders.

In retirement, he shifted his energies to battling South Africa's AIDS
crisis, a struggle that became personal when he lost his only surviving son
to the disease in 2005.

Mandela's last major appearance on the global stage came in 2010 when he
attended the championship match of the soccer World Cup, where he received
a thunderous ovation from the 90,000 at the stadium in Soweto, the
neighborhood in which he cut his teeth as a resistance leader.

Charged with capital offences in the infamous 1963 Rivonia Trial, his
statement from the dock was his political testimony.

"During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African
people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against
black domination."