A 1990
photo
shows
Winnie
Madikizela-Mandela
with
Nelson
Mandela
in
Soweto,
South
Africa.
(Photo:
Associated
Press
1990)
Anti-apartheid
activist
Winnie
Madikizela-Mandela
dies at
81
By
CHRISTOPHER
TORCHIA
APNews.com
JOHANNESBURG
- Nelson
Mandela’s
ex-wife
Winnie
Madikizela-Mandela,
an
anti-apartheid
activist
in her
own
right
whose
reputation
was
sullied
by
scandal,
has
died.
She was
81.
The
woman
many
South
Africans
have
described
as the
“Mother
of the
Nation”
and a
champion
of the
black
majority,
died
“surrounded
by her
family
and
loved
ones,”
according
to a
statement
released
by
Madikizela-Mandela’s
family.
Madikizela-Mandela
was the
second
of
Mandela’s
three
wives,
married
to him
from
1958 to
1996.
Mandela,
who died
in 2013,
was
imprisoned
throughout
most of
their
marriage,
and
Madikizela-Mandela’s
own
activism
against
white
minority
rule led
to her
being
jailed
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
ANC
leader
Gwede
Mantashe.
The
ANC,
which
was the
main
movement
against
apartheid,
had lost
popularity
in
recent
years in
part
because
of
scandals
linked
to
former
President
Jacob
Zuma,
who
resigned
in
February.
Zuma’s
successor,
President
Cyril
Ramaphosa,
described
Madikizela-Mandela
in a
televised
tribute
as a
“champion
of
justice
and
equality”
and a
“voice
for the
voiceless.”
Nobel
laureate
and
former
archbishop
Desmond
Tutu, a
periodic
critic
of the
ruling
party,
noted
her
passing
by
describing
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.”
U.N.
Secretary-General
Antonio
Guterres
called
Madikizela-Mandela
“a
leading
figure
at the
forefront
of the
fight
against
apartheid
in South
Africa,”
his
spokesman
Stephane
Dujarric
said.
Guterres
said
“she was
a strong
and
fearless
voice in
the
struggle
for
equal
rights
and will
be
remembered
as a
symbol
of
resistance,”
Dujarric
told
reporters
at U.N.
headquarters
in New
York.
Madikizela-Mandela
had been
in and
out of
hospital
since
the
start of
the
year,
according
to her
family.
She had
back
surgery
a year
ago.
After
hearing
of her
death,
some
people
gathered
Monday
evening
outside
Madikizela-Mandela’s
home in
the
Soweto
area of
Johannesburg
to sing
tributes.
She had
attended
Easter
services
in
Soweto
over the
long
weekend.
The
family
said it
will
release
details
of her
memorial
and
funeral
services
when
they are
finalized.
Madikizela-Mandela’s
story
was told
in
biographies
and
novels
as well
the
Hollywood
movie
“Winnie,”
starring
Oscar-winning
actress
and
singer
Jennifer
Hudson.
The
young
Winnie
grew up
in what
is now
Eastern
Cape
province
and came
to
Johannesburg
as the
city’s
first
black
female
social
worker.
Her
research
into the
high
infant
mortality
rate in
a black
township,
which
she
linked
to
poverty
caused
by
racism,
first
sparked
her
interest
in
politics.
In
1957,
she met
Nelson
Mandela,
an
up-and-coming
lawyer
and
anti-apartheid
activist
18 years
her
senior,
and they
married
a year
later.
The
first
five
turbulent
years of
their
marriage
saw
Mandela
going
underground
to build
the
armed
struggle
against
apartheid,
and
finally
to
prison
in 1963,
while
his wife
gave
birth to
two
daughters.
Madikizela-Mandela
always
was
aware of
the
danger
of being
in the
shadow
of her
husband’s
all-encompassing
personality.
Even
before
they
were
separated
by
Nelson
Mandela’s
long
stay in
prison,
she had
become
politicized,
being
jailed
for two
weeks
while
pregnant
for
participating
in a
women’s
protest
of
apartheid
restrictions
on
blacks.
The
apartheid
police
later
harassed
her,
sometimes
dragging
her from
bed at
night
without
giving
her a
chance
to make
arrangements
for her
daughters.
In
1977,
she was
banished
to a
remote
town,
Brandfort,
where
neighbors
were
forbidden
to speak
to her.
She was
banned
from
meeting
with
more
than one
person
at a
time.
The
woman
who
returned
to
Johannesburg
in 1985
was much
harder,
more
ruthless
and
bellicose,
branded
by the
cruelty
of
apartheid
and
determined
vengeance.
In
her book
“100
Years of
Struggle:
Mandela’s
ANC,”
Heidi
Holland
suggested
that
Madikizela-Mandela
was
“perhaps
driven
half-mad
by
security
police
harassment.”
In an
infamous
1986
speech
she
threatened
“no more
peaceful
protests.”
Instead,
she
endorsed
the “necklacing”
method
of
killing
suspected
informers
and
police
with
fuel-doused
tires
put
around
the neck
and set
alight.
“Together
hand-in-hand,
with our
boxes of
matches
and our
necklaces,
we shall
liberate
this
country,”
she
said.
Madikizela-Mandela
complained
bitterly
on a
North
American
tour
after
she was
forced
to
testify
to South
Africa’s
Truth
and
Reconciliation
Commission
in 1997
that the
commission
never
asked
her
about
the
treatment
she
suffered
over 18
months
in
solitary
confinement.
The
Mandela
marriage
that
survived
decades
of
prison
bars
dissolved
with a
formal
separation
in 1992,
two
years
after
Nelson
Mandela
was
released.
“Their
personal
relationship
broke
down,”
said
George
Bizos, a
human
rights
lawyer
who
represented
Nelson
Mandela
at the
1960s
Rivonia
trial
that led
to his
long
imprisonment.
“Nelson
Mandela
called
two
other
senior
members
of the
ANC
after
his
release
and he
actually
said, ‘I
love
her, we
have
differences,
I don’t
want to
discuss
them,
please
respect
her,’”
Bizos
said.
“And he
shed
tears to
say that
we have
decided
to
separate.
He loved
her to
the
end.”
The
couple
divorced
in 1996,
two
years
after
Mandela
became
president
in South
Africa’s
first
all-race
elections,
with
Mandela
accusing
his wife
of
infidelity.
As
the
mother
of two
of
Mandela’s
children,
Madikizela-Mandela
and her
ex-husband
appeared
to
rebuild
a
friendship
in his
final
years.
After
Mandela’s
death,
however,
she
became
involved
in
disputes
over his
inheritance.
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