Nelson Mandela

International diplomacy

Nelson Mandela negotiated with Colonel Muammar Gaddafi to help bring about the Lockerbie trial.President Mandela took a particular interest in helping to resolve the long-running dispute between Libya on the one hand, and the United States and Britain on the other, over bringing to trial the two Libyans who were accused of sabotaging Pan Am Flight 103 on 21 December 1988 with the loss of 270 lives. In November 1994, Mandela offered South Africa as a neutral venue for the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial but the offer was rejected by British Prime Minister John Major. A further three years elapsed until Mandela's offer was repeated to Major's successor, Tony Blair, when the president visited London in July 1997. Later the same year, at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) at Edinburgh in October 1997, Mandela warned: "No one nation should be complainant, prosecutor and judge." A compromise solution was then agreed for a trial to be held at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, governed by Scots law, and President Mandela began negotiations with Colonel Gaddafi for the handover of the two accused (Megrahi and Fhimah) in April 1999.

At the end of their nine-month trial, the verdict was announced on 31 January 2001. Fhimah was acquitted but Megrahi was convicted and sentenced to 27 years in a Scottish jail. Megrahi's appeal was turned down in March 2002, and former president Mandela went to visit him in Barlinnie prison on 10 June 2002. "Megrahi is all alone," Mandela told a packed press conference in the prison's visitors room. "He has nobody he can talk to. It is psychological persecution that a man must stay for the length of his long sentence all alone." Mandela added: "It would be fair if he were transferred to a Muslim country — and there are Muslim countries which are trusted by the west. It will make it easier for his family to visit him if he is in a place like the kingdom of Morocco, Tunisia or Egypt." Megrahi was subsequently moved to Greenock jail and is no longer in solitary confinement. His case is currently being reviewed by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, which is expected to rule that Megrahi's case should be referred back to the Scottish High Court of Justiciary for a fresh appeal.

 

Marriages
Mandela has been married three times. His first marriage was to Evelyn Ntoko Mase who, like Mandela, was also from what later became the Transkei area of South Africa; although they actually met in Johannesburg. The couple had three children, educated at the Waterford Kamhlaba but they broke up in 1957 after 13 years, divorcing under the multiple strains of his constant absences, devotion to revolutionary agitation, and the fact she was a Jehovah's Witness, so she pursued a purely neutral position to political struggle and politics generally in reliance on her faith (viz., Jehovah's Witnesses believe their sole political loyalty is owed to God and His Kingdom yet to come, so they are pacificists and non-participants in all kinds of political affairs).

Mandela's second wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, also came from the Transkei area, although they, too, met in Johannesburg, where she was the city's first black social worker. Later, Winnie would be deeply torn by family discord which mirrored the country's political strife: while her husband was serving a life sentence on the Robben Island prison for terrorism and treason, her father became the agriculture minister in the Transkei. The marriage ended in separation (April 1992) and divorce (March 1996), fuelled by political estrangement.

On his 80th birthday, he married Graça Machel, widow of Samora Machel, the former Mozambican president and ANC ally killed in an air crash 12 years earlier.

 

Retirement

Former United States Vice President Al Gore holds hands with Mandela.After his retirement as President in 1999, Mandela went on to become an advocate for a variety of social and human rights organizations. He received many foreign honours, including the Order of Merit and the Order of St. John from Queen Elizabeth II and the Presidential Medal of Freedom from George W. Bush.

As an example of his popular acclaim, in his tour of Canada in 1998, he included a speaking engagement in SkyDome in the city of Toronto where he spoke to 45,000 school children who greeted him with intense adulation. In 2001, he was the first living person to be made an honorary Canadian citizen (the only previous recipient, Raoul Wallenberg, was awarded honorary citizenship posthumously). Although the government of Canada had hoped that the vote to make Mandela a citizen would be unanimous, this was not possible due to Canadian Alliance MP Rob Anders who stood up in the Canadian House of Commons and claimed Mandela was a former "communist and a terrorist". [3] While in Canada, he was also made an honorary Companion of the Order of Canada, one of the few foreigners to receive Canada's highest honour.

In summer 2001, Mandela was diagnosed and treated for prostate cancer. He was treated with a seven week course of radiation treatment.[4]

In 2003, Mandela attacked the foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration in a number of speeches, insinuating President Bush may have been motivated by racism in not following the UN and its secretary-general Kofi Annan on the issue of the War in Iraq. "Is it because the secretary-general of the United Nations is now a black man? They never did that when secretary-generals were white," Mandela said.[5] The comments caused a rare moment of controversy and criticism for Mandela, even among some supporters.


Mandela at 46664 Arctic in TromsøLater that same year, he lent his support to the 46664 AIDS fundraising campaign, named after his prison number.

In June 2004, at age 85, Mandela announced that he would be retiring from public life. His health had been declining, and he wanted to enjoy more time with his family. He has made an exception, however, for his commitment to the fight against AIDS. In July 2004, he flew to Bangkok to speak at the XV International AIDS Conference. His son, Makgatho Mandela, died of AIDS on 6 January 2005.

Mandela has also expressed his support for the international Make Poverty History movement of which the ONE Campaign is a part.

On 23 July 2004, the city of Johannesburg bestowed its highest honour on Mandela by granting him the freedom of the city at a ceremony in Orlando, Soweto.

Today, Mandela remains a key figure to strong educational organisations that hold his ideals strongly of international understanding and peace, like the United World Colleges and the Round Square. For the IOC Celebrate Humanity Campaign for 2006 Winter Olympics Mandela appears in a spot.
 

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