Nelson Mandela is Dead

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) – Nelson
Mandela, the revered icon of the anti-
apartheid struggle in South Africa and
one of the towering political figures of the
20th century, has died aged 95, President
Jacob Zuma said Thursday.
Nelson Mandela
“He is now resting … he is now at peace,”
a sombre Zuma said. “Our nation has lost
its greatest son.”
Mandela bent history towards justice,
says Obama
America’s first black president Barack
Obama Thursday mourned Nelson
Mandela as a “profoundly good” man
who “took history in his hands and bent
the arc of the moral universe towards
justice.”
Obama — who met the former South
African president briefly only once in
2005, but was inspired to enter politics by
the anti-apartheid hero’s example — paid
a somber heartfelt tribute within 45
minutes of Mandela’s death being
announced.
“We will not likely see the likes of Nelson
Mandela again,” Obama said in a
televised statement, hailing his political
hero for his “fierce dignity and unbending
will to sacrifice his own freedom for the
freedom of others.”
Obama said Mandela, in his journey from
a “prisoner to a president,” transformed
South Africa and “moved all of us.”
“He achieved more than could be
expected of any man.”
“Today he’s gone home and we’ve lost
one of the most influential, courageous
and profoundly good human beings that
any of us will share time with on this
Earth.
“He no longer belongs to us; he belongs
to the ages.”
Obama recalled how his passion for
change was stirred by taking part in an
anti-apartheid rally — his first ever
political act.
“The day that he was released from
prison gave me a sense of what human
beings can do when they’re guided by
their hopes and not by their fears,”
Obama said.
Mandela’s fragile health overshadowed
Obama’s trip to South Africa in June, and
there had been fears that the former
South African leader would pass away
while Obama was in the country.
The president decided against visiting
Mandela in hospital, reasoning he would
be a distraction, and met with members
of his family instead.
But his entire trip became a prolonged
tribute to Obama, and the president took
his wife Michelle and daughters Malia and
Sasha to Robben Island, where Mandela
was held in spartan conditions by the
racist apartheid regime.
In one wrenching shot taken by his official
photographer, Obama was pictured in the
tiny cell where Mandela once lived, with
his emotional daughter in his arms.
He also walked with his family around the
bleak limestone quarry on the island — off
the coast of Cape Town — where Mandela
endured years of backbreaking and futile
work under the eyes of white South
African guards.
White House officials have already
privately indicated that Obama will be
expected to travel to South Africa at some
time during elaborate funeral ceremonies
for Mandela, who he often referred to by
his tribal name Madiba.
Obama will likely be joined on Air Force
One by other key political leaders from
the United States — including some of the
living former presidents — who were
quick to react to Mandela’s death with
their own statements.
“I will never forget my friend Madiba,” Bill
Clinton said in a tweet, accompanied by a
photo of he and Mandela together.
“History will remember Nelson Mandela
as a champion for human dignity and
freedom, for peace and reconciliation,”
Clinton, who was president when Mandela
took power, said in a longer statement.
Jimmy Carter said that Mandela’s passion
for “freedom and justice created new
hope for generations of oppressed people
worldwide.”
“Because of him, South Africa is today
one of the world’s leading democracies,”
Carter said in a statement.
George H.W. Bush said he had watched in
wonder as Mandela forgave his captors
following 26 years in jail — “setting a
powerful example of redemption and
grace for us all.”
“He was a man of tremendous moral
courage, who changed the course of
history in his country,” Bush senior said.
George W. Bush said that Mandela was
“one of the great forces for freedom and
equality of our time. He bore his burdens
with dignity and grace, and our world is
better off because of his example.”
More details shortly