Tras su liberación, el
11 de febrero de
1990, Mandela trabajó con el entonces
presidente de Sudáfrica,
Frederik Willem de Klerk, liderando su partido en las negociaciones para conseguir una democracia multirracial en Sudáfrica, cosa que se consiguió en 1994, con las primeras elecciones democráticas por sufragio universal. Por su trabajo en conjunto, tanto Mandela como de Klerk recibieron el
Premio Nobel de la Paz de 1993.
[4] Posteriormente Mandela ganó las elecciones y fue presidente de Sudáfrica desde 1994 hasta 1999. Su prioridad estuvo frecuentemente en la reconciliación nacional.
.
Nelson Mandela Reaches His Final Resting Place
South Africa's First Black President Ends His Long Journey That Shaped a Nation
QUNU, South Africa—Family, friends and African leaders remembered
the life of
Nelson Mandela
at a funeral held on Sunday in his childhood hometown, the final
stop in a nation-changing journey through prison to the presidency.
"He
went to school with bare feet and yet rose to the highest office in the
land," said granddaughter
Nandi Mandela,
who stood before 95 candles, each one symbolizing a year in Mr.
Mandela's life. "It is in each of us to achieve what we want in life."
"His life," she added, "is a story of resilience."
Mr.
Mandela was buried in a stone plot surrounded by aloe plants that
overlooks rolling hills and his salmon pink house. The burial ends a
10-day period of mourning following his death on Dec. 5, an event that
sparked an outpouring of emotion and introspection for a country still
struggling to overcome race and economic divisions.
South Africa's current president,
Jacob Zuma,
eulogized the late leader as the standard-bearer for a nation that remains a work in progress.
South African President Jacob Zuma spoke during the
funeral ceremony for former South African President Nelson Mandela in
Qunu on Dec. 15.
Reuters/Odd Andersen
"We learned from you to build a new
society, a new South Africa, from the ashes of apartheid colonialism, we
needed to rise above anger and the human desire for retribution. In
this way you offered hope in the place of hopelessness," said Mr. Zuma.
"As your journey ends today, ours must continue."
More than 4,000 guests attended, including several heads of state from Africa,
Charles Prince
of Wales and American talk-show luminary
Oprah Winfrey.
Guests streamed to the white
marquee set up on Mr. Mandela's farm in the early hours of the morning.
The sound of a marching band—and spontaneous singing from guests—wafted
over Qunu's green hills. Members of the Qunu community watched the
proceedings on big television screens.
Nelson Mandela's coffin was escorted to the funeral hall
on Sunday. Watch highlights of the coffin making its way to the hall,
where guests included Oprah Winfrey, Prince Charles and Richard Branson.
Photo: Getty Images
"I just want to come and say farewell," said 32-year-old Shirley Kobo. "He took us from the dust."
Still,
crowds at the viewing area were scattered and small. Many in Qunu
stayed away in a sign of local displeasure of being barred from the
funeral for their native son.
In one of
the viewing areas around Qunu, women cooked in a corner. Many in Qunu
saw the funeral as a rally for Mr. Mandela's African National Congress.
"People don't want to support the ANC," Ms. Kobo said. "The leaders today are abusing the ANC name."
The late president
will be buried at noon, when the sun is at its highest point and the
shadows are at their shortest, ANC Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa told
the funeral crowd.
Mr. Mandela became a global icon not
only for his resistance to South Africa's white apartheid regime, a
stance for which he and other liberation leaders endured long stints in
prison, but also for his promotion of reconciliation when he was
president. Mr. Mandela spent a total of 27 years in prison. His release
in 1990 signaled the demise of the apartheid regime, the dismantling of
its segregationist legislation and the dawn of South Africa's
multiracial democracy.
The 1994 national elections brought Mr. Mandela to power—the country's first black president—along with his ANC party.
Instead
of revenge, Mr. Mandela promoted forgiveness and reconciliation. The
approach was taken for pragmatic as well as idealistic reasons. In the
early 1990s, the country was a political tinderbox and the economy on
the edge of crisis. Mr. Mandela sought to reassure ordinary whites and
businesses they had an important role to play in the country's future.
Mr. Mandela's multiracial embrace, evident in the massive crowds that
turned out to see him, earned South Africa the nickname "Rainbow
Nation."
Mr. Mandela stepped down in
1999, after a single five-year term, as president. Several years later,
he was offered the position of chief in his birthplace of Mvezo but
declined, instead asking his grandson Mandla Mandela to take the role in
2007. When Mandla was anointed as chief, his grandfather said, "Now I
can die in peace."
Nelson Mandela
was born in Mvezo in 1918 and moved to nearby Qunu when he was
two years old. At the age of nine, he was sent by his mother to another
village in the area called Mqhekezweni to be raised by the chief.
But
in his memoirs "Long Walk to Freedom," he remembers Qunu most fondly.
"My life and that of most Xhosas at the time was shaped by custom,
ritual, and taboo," Mr. Mandela said in his book. While Mr. Mandela
remained closely tied to the traditions of his birthplace, he went on to
break many taboos in South Africa.
Mr.
Mandela's funeral has again brought many parts of a still deeply divided
South Africa together, but it has also highlighted the stark
inequalities that persist. In his memoirs, Mr. Mandela spoke of his
boyhood in Qunu, where he remembered two small primary schools, a
general store and places to care for cattle. Little has changed.
Unemployment in Qunu, like many parts of South Africa, is higher than
the national average of 25%. Families rely on government grants of up to
$1,500 a month.
"Coming here," said
Lindiwe Ndaba,
a 41-year-old auditor who drove from Cape Town to watch the funeral in Qunu, "you realize we still have so much to do."
Related Coverage
- Live Updates
- Only Invited Guests Are Allowed at Mandela Funeral (Dec. 14, 2013)
- As Mandela Is Remembered, a Rift Lingers in His Family (Dec. 13, 2013)
- Mandela Lying in State in Pretoria (Dec. 11, 2013)
- In Mandela Hometown, a More Somber Tone for Memorial (Dec. 10, 2013)
- Mandela's Death Takes Heat Off Zuma (Dec. 9, 2013)
- Nelson Mandela, South African Leader and Apartheid Foe, Dies at 95 (Dec. 5, 2013)
- Complete Video Coverag
The Long Goodbye
See locations of the main events.
Remembering Mandela
Mourners in Cape Town.
AFP/Getty Images
Nelson Mandela's thoughts about death, courage, oppression and more.
After Mandela
Take a look at some political successors.
The Wall Street Journal
Nelson Mandela makes final journey home in South Africa
Photo credit: AFP
South Africans
watch the hearse carrying the coffin of South African former president
Nelson Mandela drive through the streets of Mthatha on December 14.
Qunu, South Africa: Nelson Mandela came home on Saturday.
A
hearse carrying Mandela's body drove into his hometown in rural South
Africa ahead of burial Sunday, returning the country's peacemaker to the
place where he had always wanted to die.
It was here in Qunu
that Mandela roamed the hills and tended livestock as a youth, absorbing
lessons about discipline and consensus from traditional chiefs. From
here he embarked on a journey - the "long walk to freedom" as he put it -
that thrust him to the forefront of black South Africans' struggle for
equal rights that resonated around the world.
As motorcyclists in
uniform and armored personnel carriers escorted the vehicle carrying
Mandela's casket to the family compound, people lining the route sang,
applauded and, in some cases, wept.
"When I saw the hearse
passing, I couldn't hold my excitement. I felt like I was holding him by
the hand," said Norma Khobo. "It was very exciting, I saw him!"
The
vehicle carrying Mandela's casket, covered with a national flag,
arrived at the family compound under cloudy skies at 4 p.m. It was
accompanied by an enormous convoy of police, military and other
vehicles, and a military helicopter hovered overhead.
According to Xhosa tribal tradition, Mandela was honored as a leader by placing a skin on the coffin, replacing the flag.
Mandela's
journey started Saturday with pomp and ceremony at an air base in the
capital before being flown aboard a military plane to this simple
village in the wide-open spaces of eastern South Africa.
At the
Mthatha airport Mandela's casket was welcomed by a military guard and
placed in a convoy for the 32 kilometer (20 mile) voyage toward Qunu.
Residents and people who had traveled for hours thronged a road leading
to Qunu, singing and dancing as Mandela T-shirts were handed out.
"We
got up this morning at 2 a.m. and drove from Port Elizabeth - it's
about seven hours - and we got here now. We're waiting on to show our
last respects to Madiba," said Ebrahim Jeftha, using Mandela's clan
name.
Mandela's widow, Graca Machel, and his former wife, Winnie
Madikizela-Mandela, tearfully embraced at Mthatha airport when the
casket arrived.
Mandela had been imprisoned for 27 years for
opposing racist apartheid and emerged in 1990 to forge a new democratic
South Africa by promoting forgiveness and reconciliation. He became
president in 1994 after South Africa's first all-race democratic
elections.
The late president died in his Johannesburg home Dec. 5 at age 95.
His
body lay in state for three days this week, drawing huge crowds of
South Africans who mourned his death and celebrated his successful
struggle against apartheid.
When Mandela's body arrived at
Mthatha airport soldiers in full dress regalia, male and female, were
stationed on foot on either side of the road as cows grazed nearby.
Local residents lined the route, shielding themselves from the sun with
umbrellas.
Mandela had longed to spend his final months in his
beloved rural village but instead he had spent them in a hospital in
Pretoria and then in his home in Johannesburg where he had remained in
critical condition, suffering from lung problems and other ailments,
until his death.
A problem that threatened to mar the funeral
appeared to be resolved late Saturday night when Archbishop Desmond
Tutu's spokesman said the Nobel prize-winning cleric would attend
Sunday's funeral in Mandela's home village of Qunu. Earlier Tutu said
that he would not attend because he had not been invited or accredited
as a clergyman. Spokesman Roger Friedman did not say what brought about
the change in Tutu's plans.
Earlier, Mac Maharaj, a spokesman for the presidency, said Tutu was on the guest list.
"He's an important person and I hope ways can be found for him to be there," Maharaj said.
In Qunu, residents expressed deep affection for Mandela, their beloved native son.
"Long live the spirit of Nelson Mandela," chanted a crowd on a highway near Mandela's compound.
"My president," they sang.
There were also old songs of the anti-apartheid struggle.
"Release Mandela from prison," went the chorus of one.
Many
people carried small national flags or banners with a smiling image of
Mandela. Periodically, police and other official vehicles passed by,
heading to the compound.
Khanyisa Qatolo, 28, was born in Qunu
and attended children's Christmas parties hosted by Mandela at his home
when she was a child in the 1990s.
"I remember his smile," she said. "I miss his smile."
Qatolo
said she was disappointed that local residents would be unable to go to
Mandela's funeral, in line with local custom, and had instead been
asked by officials to view the final rites on big video screens in the
area.
"The people of the community, they should be there, supporting the family," she said. "I feel bad not to go there."
Milly
Viljoen, 43, drove 12 hours through the night with a friend to stand on
the roadside overlooking Mandela's compound in Qunu.
"'It's befitting to see him to his final resting place," she said.
Viljoen,
a student activist during apartheid, first saw Mandela when he appeared
before an enthralled crowd in Cape Town after he was released in 1990.
She met him later when he visited the township school where she was
teaching. She said: "You couldn't help but love the man and be touched
and hang onto his every word."
NDTV
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
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