1.
Apartheid
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Apartheid was a system of institutionalised racial segregation and discrimination in South Africa between 1948 and 1991, when it was abolished. The countrys first multiracial elections under a universal franchise were held three years later in 1994, Apartheid as a policy was embraced by the South African government shortly after the ascension of the National Party during the countrys 1948 general elections. Apartheid was also enforced in South West Africa until it gained independence as Namibia in 1990, with the rapid growth and industrialisation of the British Cape Colony in the nineteenth century, racial policies and laws became increasingly rigid. Cape legislation that discriminated specifically against black Africans began appearing shortly before 1900, the policies of the Boer republics were also racially exclusive, for instance, the Transvaal constitution barred nonwhite participation in church and state. Places of residence were determined by racial classification, from 1960 to 1983,3.5 million nonwhite South Africans were removed from their homes, and forced into segregated neighbourhoods, in one of the largest mass removals in modern history. Most of these targeted removals were intended to restrict the population to ten designated tribal homelands, also known as bantustans. The government announced that relocated persons would lose their South African citizenship as they were absorbed into the bantustans, Apartheid sparked significant international and domestic opposition, resulting in some of the most influential global social movements of the twentieth century. It was the target of frequent condemnation in the United Nations, some reforms of the apartheid system were undertaken, including allowing for Indian and coloured political representation in parliament, but these measures failed in appeasing most activist groups. In 1990, prominent ANC leaders such as Nelson Mandela were released from detention, Apartheid legislation was abolished in mid-1991, pending multiracial elections set for April 1994. Apartheid is an Afrikaans word meaning separateness, or the state of being apart and its first recorded use was in 1929. The governors and assemblies that governed the process in the various colonies of South Africa were launched on a different and independent legislative path from the rest of the British Empire. In the days of slavery, slaves required passes to travel away from their masters, in 1797 the Landdrost and Heemraden of Swellendam and Graaff-Reinet extended pass laws beyond slaves and ordained that all Khoikhoi moving about the country for any purpose should carry passes. Ordinance No.49 of 1828 decreed that prospective black immigrants were to be granted passes for the purpose of seeking work. These passes were to be issued for Coloureds and Khoikhoi, but not for other Africans, the United Kingdoms Slavery Abolition Act 1833 abolished slavery throughout the British Empire and overrode the Cape Articles of Capitulation. To comply with the act the South African legislation was expanded to include Ordinance 1 in 1835 and this was followed by Ordinance 3 in 1848, which introduced an indenture system for Xhosa that was little different from slavery. The Glen Grey Act of 1894, instigated by the government of Prime Minister Cecil John Rhodes limited the amount of land Africans could hold, in 1905 the General Pass Regulations Act denied blacks the vote, limited them to fixed areas and inaugurated the infamous Pass System. The Asiatic Registration Act required all Indians to register and carry passes, one of the first pieces of segregating legislation enacted by Jan Smuts United Party government was the Asiatic Land Tenure Bill, which banned land sales to Indians. The United Party government began to move away from the enforcement of segregationist laws during World War II
2.
Negotiations to end apartheid in South Africa
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The apartheid system in South Africa was ended through a series of negotiations between 1990 and 1993 and through unilateral steps by the de Klerk government. These negotiations took place between the governing National Party, the African National Congress, and a variety of other political organisations. Negotiations took place against a backdrop of violence in the country. The negotiations resulted in South Africas first non-racial election, which was won by the African National Congress, apartheid was a system of racial discrimination and segregation in South African government. It was formalised in 1948, forming a framework for political and economic dominance by the white population, between 1960 and 1990, the African National Congress and other mainly black opposition political organisations were banned. As the National Party cracked down on opposition to apartheid, most leaders of ANC. The declarations purpose was to provide a blueprint for government of South Africa for racial peace in South Africa and it called for negotiations involving all peoples, in order to draw up constitutional proposals stressing opportunity for all with a Bill of Rights to safeguard these rights. It suggested that the concept was the appropriate framework for such changes to take place. It also affirmed that change must take place through non-violent means. The declaration was the first of such agreements by acknowledged black, the commitment to the peaceful pursuit of political change was declared at a time when neither the National Party nor the African National Congress were looking to peaceful solutions or dialogue. The declaration was heralded by the English speaking press as a breakthrough in race relations in South Africa, shortly after it was issued, the declaration was endorsed by several chief ministers of the black homelands, including Cedric Phatudi, Lucas Mangope and Hudson Nisanwisi. These meetings were secret in nature and were designed to develop an understanding about whether there were sufficient common grounds for peace talks. As these meetings evolved, a level of trust developed between the key actors, to facilitate future talks while preserving secrecy needed to protect the process, Barnard arranged for Mandela to be moved off Robben Island to Pollsmoor Prison in 1982. This provided Mandela with more comfortable lodgings, but also gave access in a way that could not be compromised. Barnard therefore brokered an agreement in principle about what became known as talks about talks. It was at this stage that the process was elevated from an engagement to a more public engagement. The first less-tentative meeting between Mandela and the National Party government came while P. W. Botha was State President, in November 1985, Minister Kobie Coetsee met Mandela in the hospital while Mandela was being treated for prostate surgery. This new phase was designed to test public opinion about a negotiated solution, when F. W. de Klerk became President in 1989, he was able to build on the previous secret negotiations with the imprisoned Mandela
3.
F. W. de Klerk
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Frederik Willem de Klerk is a South African politician who served as the countrys State President from August 1989 to May 1994. He was the seventh and last head of state of South Africa under the apartheid era, De Klerk was also leader of the National Party from February 1989 to September 1997. He won the Félix Houphouët-Boigny Peace Prize in 1991, the Prince of Asturias Award in 1992 and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 along with Nelson Mandela for his role in the ending of apartheid. He was one of the deputy presidents of South Africa during the presidency of Nelson Mandela until 1996, in 1997 he retired from active politics. He continues to remain active as a lecturer internationally, after the deaths of P. W. Botha in 2006 and Marais Viljoen in 2007, de Klerk is the last surviving State President of South Africa. The name de Klerk is derived from Le Clerc, Le Clercq, De Klerk noted that he is also of Dutch descent, with an Indian ancestor from the late 1600s or early 1700s. He is also said to be descended from the Khoi interpreter known as Krotoa or Eva, De Klerk graduated from Monument High School in Krugersdorp. De Klerk graduated in 1958 from the Potchefstroom University with BA, following graduation, de Klerk practised law in Vereeniging in the Transvaal. In 1959 he married Marike Willemse, with whom he had two sons and a daughter and he came from a family environment in which the conservatism of traditional white South African politics was deeply ingrained. His paternal great-grandfather was Senator Johannes Cornelis Jan van Rooy and his aunt was married to NP Prime Minister J. G. Strijdom. In 1948, the year when the NP swept to power in elections on an apartheid platform. His brother Willem is a liberal newspaperman and one of the founders of the Democratic Party. F. W. pronounced eff-veer, as he became known, was first elected to the House of Assembly in 1969 as the member for Vereeniging. De Klerk had been offered a professorship of law at Potchefstroom in 1972. In 1978, he was appointed Minister of Posts and Telecommunications and Social Welfare, under Prime Minister and later State President P. W. He became Transvaal provincial National Party leader in 1982 and chairman of the Ministers Council in the House of Assembly in 1985, for most of his career, de Klerk had a very conservative reputation. The NPs Transvaal branch was historically the most staunchly conservative wing of the party and it thus came as a surprise when in 1989 he placed himself at the head of verligte forces within the governing party which had come to believe that apartheid could not be maintained forever. This wing favoured beginning negotiations while there was time to get reasonable terms
4.
Thabo Mbeki
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Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki is a South African politician who served nine years as the second post-apartheid President of South Africa from 14 June 1999 to 24 September 2008. R. Nicholson of improper interference in the National Prosecuting Authority, on 12 January 2009, the Supreme Court of Appeal unanimously overturned judge Nicholsons judgment but the resignation stood. During his time in office the economy grew at a rate of 4. 5% per year. Mbeki created employment in the sectors of the economy and oversaw a fast-growing black middle class with the implementation of Black Economic Empowerment. This growth exacerbated the demand for trained professionals strained by emigration due to violent crime and he attracted the bulk of Africas Foreign Direct Investment and made South Africa the focal point of African growth. He was the architect of NEPAD whose aim is to develop an integrated socio-economic development framework for Africa, Mbeki has mediated in difficult and complex issues on the African continent including Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast, and some important peace agreements. He oversaw the transition from the Organisation of African Unity to the African Union and his quiet diplomacy in Zimbabwe, however, is blamed for protracting the survival of Robert Mugabes regime at the cost of thousands of lives and intense economic pressure on Zimbabwes neighbours. He became a leader of the Non-Aligned Movement in the United Nations. Mbeki has received criticism for his stance on AIDS. He questions the link between HIV and AIDS and believes that the correlation between poverty and the AIDS rate in Africa was a challenge to the theory of AIDS. His fate was not helped by Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and the overhaul of the industry in South Africa. His ban of antiretroviral drugs in public hospitals is estimated to be responsible for the deaths of between 330,000 and 365,000 people. Thabo Mbeki has also criticised for responding to negative comments made about his government by accusing critics of racism. Born and raised in Mbewuleni, Cape Province, Union of South Africa, Mbeki is one of four children of Epainette, the economist Moeletsi Mbeki is one of his brothers. His father was a stalwart of the African National Congress and the South African Communist Party and he is a native Xhosa speaker. Mbeki attended primary school in Idutywa and Butterworth and acquired a school education at Lovedale. In 1959, he was expelled from school as a result of student strikes, in the same year, he sat for matriculation examinations at St. Johns High School, Umtata. In the ensuing years, he completed British A-level examinations and undertook a degree as an external student with the University of London
5.
Steve Biko
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Stephen Bantu Biko was a South African anti-apartheid activist. Ideologically an African nationalist and African socialist, he was at the forefront of a grassroots anti-apartheid campaign known as the Black Consciousness Movement during the late 1960s and 1970s, a Xhosa, Biko grew up in Ginsberg, Eastern Cape. In 1966, he began studying medicine at the University of Natal, here he was increasingly politicised and rose to a senior position in the National Union of South African Students. He developed the view that to white domination, black people had to organise independently. To this end he was a figure in the creation of the South African Students Organisation in 1968. Through SASO, Biko developed his Black Consciousness ideas, which were influenced by those of Frantz Fanon. The movement campaigned for an end to apartheid and the transition of South Africa toward universal suffrage, in 1972 Biko was involved in founding the Black Peoples Convention to promote BC ideas among the wider population. The government was concerned by his activities, and in 1973 they placed him under a banning order and he remained politically active and helped to organise Black Consciousness programs in the Ginsberg area, including the establishment of a healthcare centre. He received anonymous threats and was detained by security services on four occasions. Following his arrest in August 1977, Biko was tortured by state security officers and he sustained fatal head injuries, and died shortly after. Over 20,000 people attended his funeral, many of his writings were posthumously published for a wider audience, and his life was the subject of a book by his friend Donald Woods and later the 1987 film Cry Freedom. The National Party regime that ruled South Africa during Bikos lifetime claimed that he hated whites, more widely, Biko has been called a martyr of the anti-apartheid movement. Bantu Stephen Biko was born on 18 December 1946, the third child of Mzingayi Mathew Biko and Alice Mamcete Biko, he was born at his grandmothers house in Tarkastad, Eastern Cape. Mzingayi and Alice had married in Whittlesea, where the former worked as a policeman, Mzingayi was then transferred to Queenstown, Port Elizabeth, Fort Cox, and finally King Williams Town, where he and Alice settled in Ginsberg township. This was a settlement of around 800 families, with four families sharing a water supply. The township housed both Bantu African and Coloured individuals, and Xhosa, Afrikaans, and English were all spoken, there, Mzingaye worked at a clerk in the King Williams Town Native Affairs Office, while studying for a law degree by correspondence from the University of South Africa. Alice was employed in work, first for local white households. The name Bantu literally means people, although Biko interpreted this in terms of the saying Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu, among the nicknames that he acquired as a child were Goofy and Xwaku-Xwaku, the latter a reference to his unkempt appearance
6.
Nelson Mandela
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Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, politician, and philanthropist, who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the countrys first black head of state and the first elected in a representative democratic election. His government focused on dismantling the legacy of apartheid by tackling institutionalised racism, ideologically an African nationalist and socialist, he served as President of the African National Congress party from 1991 to 1997. A Xhosa, Mandela was born in Mvezo to the Thembu royal family and he studied law at the University of Fort Hare and the University of the Witwatersrand before working as a lawyer in Johannesburg. There he became involved in anti-colonial and African nationalist politics, joining the ANC in 1943, after the National Partys white-only government established apartheid—a system of racial segregation that privileged whites—he and the ANC committed themselves to its overthrow. Mandela was appointed President of the ANCs Transvaal branch, rising to prominence for his involvement in the 1952 Defiance Campaign and he was repeatedly arrested for seditious activities and was unsuccessfully prosecuted in the 1956 Treason Trial. Influenced by Marxism, he joined the banned South African Communist Party. Although initially committed to non-violent protest, in association with the SACP he co-founded the militant Umkhonto we Sizwe in 1961, in 1962, he was arrested for conspiring to overthrow the state and sentenced to life imprisonment in the Rivonia Trial. Mandela served 27 years in prison, initially on Robben Island, amid growing domestic and international pressure, and with fears of a racial civil war, President F. W. de Klerk released him in 1990. Mandela and de Klerk negotiated an end to apartheid and organised the 1994 multiracial general election in which Mandela led the ANC to victory, internationally, he acted as mediator in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial and served as Secretary-General of the Non-Aligned Movement from 1998 to 1999. He declined a presidential term and in 1999 was succeeded by his deputy. Mandela became a statesman and focused on combating poverty and HIV/AIDS through the charitable Nelson Mandela Foundation. Mandela was a figure for much of his life. Widely regarded as an icon of democracy and social justice, he received more than 250 honours—including the Nobel Peace Prize—and became the subject of a cult of personality. He is held in deep respect within South Africa, where he is referred to by his Xhosa clan name, Madiba. Mandela was born on 18 July 1918 in the village of Mvezo in Umtata, given the forename Rolihlahla, a Xhosa term colloquially meaning troublemaker, in later years he became known by his clan name, Madiba. His patrilineal great-grandfather, Ngubengcuka, was king of the Thembu people in the Transkeian Territories of South Africas modern Eastern Cape province, one of Ngubengcukas sons, named Mandela, was Nelsons grandfather and the source of his surname. In 1926, Gadla was also sacked for corruption, but Nelson was told that his father had lost his job for standing up to the magistrates unreasonable demands
7.
Sharpeville massacre
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The Sharpeville massacre was an event which occurred on 21 March 1960, at the police station in the South African township of Sharpeville in Transvaal. After a day of demonstrations against pass laws, a crowd of about 5,000 to 7,000 black protesters went to the police station, the South African Police opened fire on the crowd, killing 69 people. In present-day South Africa,21 March is celebrated as a holiday in honour of human rights. South African governments since the century had enacted measures to restrict the flow of black South Africans into cities. Pass laws intended to control and direct their movement and employment were updated in the 1950s, under the countrys National Party government, black residents in urban districts were subject to influx control measures. From the 1960s, the laws were the primary instrument used by the state to detain. The African National Congress prepared to initiate a campaign of protests against pass laws. On March 21, a group of between 5,000 and 10,000 people converged on the police station in the township of Sharpeville. The Sharpeville police were not completely unprepared for the demonstration, as they had already forced to drive smaller groups of more militant activists away the previous night. By 10,00, a crowd had gathered. Fewer than 20 police officers were present in the station at the start of the protest. Later the crowd grew to about 20,000, and the mood was described as ugly, prompting about 130 police reinforcements, supported by four Saracen armoured personnel carriers, the police were armed with firearms, including Sten submachine guns and Lee–Enfield rifles. There was no evidence that anyone in the gathering was armed with anything other than rocks, f-86 Sabre jets and Harvard Trainers approached to within a hundred feet of the ground, flying low over the crowd in an attempt to scatter it. The protesters responded by hurling stones and menacing the police barricades, tear gas proved ineffectual, and policemen elected to repel these advances with their batons. At about 13,00 the police tried to arrest a protestor, resulting in a scuffle, the official figure is that 69 people were killed, including 8 women and 10 children, and 180 injured, including 31 women and 19 children. Many were shot in the back as they turned to flee, Police reports in 1960 claimed that young and inexperienced police officers panicked and opened fire spontaneously, setting off a chain reaction that lasted about forty seconds. It is likely that the police were nervous as two months before the massacre nine constables had been assaulted and killed during a raid at Cato Manor, in addition, few of the policemen present had received public order training. Some of them had been on duty for over twenty-four hours without respite, for them to gather means violence
8.
Ruth First
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Ruth First was a South African anti-apartheid activist and scholar born in Johannesburg, South Africa. She was killed by a parcel bomb addressed specifically to her in Mozambique, Ruth First was born in 1925 and brought up in Johannesburg. She too joined the Communist Party, which was allied with the African National Congress in its struggle to overthrow the South African government, First attended Jeppe High School for Girls and then became the first person in her family to attend university. She received her Bachelors degree from the University of the Witwatersrand in 1946, while she was at university she found that on a South African campus, the student issues that matter are national issues. After graduating, Ruth First worked as an assistant for the Social Welfare Division of the Johannesburg City Council. In 1946, her position in the Communist Party was boosted significantly after a series of strikes during which leading members of the Party were arrested. First then became the editor-in-chief of the radical newspaper The Guardian, in 1949 she married Joe Slovo, a South African anti-apartheid activist and Communist, with whom she had three daughters, Shawn, Gillian and Robyn. In addition to her work with The Guardian and its successors and she was active in the anti-apartheid movement not only through her journalism, but also through political action. First and her husband Slovo were members of the African National Congress as well as the Communist Party, Ruth First was one of the defendants in the Treason Trial of 1956-1961, alongside 156 other leading anti-apartheid activists who were key figures in the Congress Alliance. After the state of emergency that followed the Sharpesville massacre in 1960 she was listed and banned and she could not attend meetings or publish, and she could not be quoted. In 1963, during another government crackdown, she was imprisoned and she was the first white woman to be detained under this law. In March 1964 First went into exile in London, where she became active in the British Anti-Apartheid Movement and she was a Research Fellow at the University of Manchester in 1972, and between 1973 and 1978 she lectured in development studies at the University of Durham. She also spent periods on secondment at universities in Dar es Salaam, in November 1978 First took up the post of director of research at the Centre of African Studies, Universidade Eduardo Mondlane in Maputo, Mozambique. She was assassinated by order of Craig Williamson, a major in the South African Police, on 17 August 1982, bridget OLaughlin, an anthropologist working with First, was in Firsts office when she was murdered, and testified to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Firsts book 117 Days is her account of her arrest, imprisonment and it was first published in 1965. The memoir provides an account of how she endured isolation. Her daughter, the writer Gillian Slovo, published her own memoir, Every Secret Thing, My Family, My Country and it is an account of her childhood in South Africa and her relationship with her activist parents. Barbara Hershey plays the character based on Ruth First, in 2005 the South African Ministry of the Environment launched an environmental patrol vessel named the Ruth First
9.
Albert Lutuli
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Inkosi Albert John Lutuli, also known by his Zulu name Mvumbi, was a South African teacher, activist, Nobel Peace Prize winner, and politician. Luthuli was elected president of the African National Congress, at the time an organisation that led opposition to the white minority government in South Africa. He was awarded the 1960 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the non-violent struggle against apartheid and he was the first African, and the first person from outside Europe and the Americas, to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The third son of Seventh-day Adventist missionary John Bunyan Lutuli and Mtonya Gumede, Albert Lutuli was born near Bulawayo in what was then called Rhodesia and his father died, and he and his mother returned to her ancestral home of Groutville in KwaDukuza, Natal, South Africa. He stayed with his uncle, Martin Lutuli, who was at time the elected chief of the Zulu Christians inhabiting the mission reserve area now covered by the Umzinyathi District Municipality. Lutuli attended the Adams College south of Durban, on completing a teaching course at Edendale, near Pietermaritzburg, Lutuli accepted the post of principal and only teacher at a primary school in rural Blaauwbosch, Newcastle, Natal. Here Lutuli was confirmed in the Methodist Church and became a lay preacher, to provide financial support for his mother, he declined a scholarship to University of Fort Hare. In 1928 he became secretary of the African Teachers Association and in 1933 its president and he was also active in missionary work. In 1933 the tribal elders asked Lutuli to become chief of the Zulu tribe in succession to his uncle, for two years he hesitated, but accepted the call in early 1936 and became a chieftain. He held this position until he was removed from his office by the Apartheid government in 1953 and their having done so notwithstanding, amongst his people he retained the use of the dignity chief as a pre-nominal style for the remainder of his life. In 1936 the government disenfranchised the only black Africans who had voting rights at that time — those in Cape Province, in 1948 the Nationalist Party, which was in control of the government, adopted the policy of apartheid and over the next decade the Pass Laws were tightened. In 1944 Lutuli joined the African National Congress, in 1945 he was elected to the Committee of the KwaZulu Provincial Division of ANC and in 1951 to the presidency of the Division. The next year he joined with other ANC leaders in organizing nonviolent campaigns to defy discriminatory laws, the government, charging Lutuli with a conflict of interest, demanded that he withdraw his membership in ANC or forfeit his office as tribal chief. Refusing to do either, he was dismissed from his chieftainship, a month later Lutuli was elected president-general of ANC, formally nominated by the future Pan Africanist Congress leader Potlako Leballo. Responding immediately, the government imposed two two-year bans on Lutulis movement, when the second ban expired in 1956, he attended an ANC conference only to be arrested and charged with treason a few months later, along with 155 others. In December 1957, after nearly a year in custody during the hearings, Lutuli was released. He stood close to the International Fellowship of Reconciliation that in 1957 opened a branch in Southern Rhodesia Another five-year ban confined him to a 15-mile radius of his home, the ban was temporarily lifted while he testified at the continuing treason trials. It was lifted again in March 1960, to permit his arrest for publicly burning his pass following the Sharpeville massacre, in the ensuing state of emergency he was arrested, found guilty, fined, given a suspended jail sentence, and finally returned to Groutville
10.
South African Defence Force
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The South African Defence Force comprised the South African armed forces from 1957 until 1994. Shortly before the state reconstituted itself as a republic in 1961, the former Union Defence Force was officially succeeded by the SADF, the SADF, in turn, was superseded by the South African National Defence Force in 1994. The military was composed of white South Africans, who alone were subject to conscription. However, Asians and Coloured citizens with mixed ancestry were eligible to serve as volunteers, units such as the 32 Battalion incorporated many black volunteers. Conscription was opposed by such as the End Conscription Campaign. During apartheid, armed SADF troops were used in quelling opposition to minority rule, SADF personnel were also deployed during the related South African Border and Namibian independence conflicts. Before 1957, the Union of South Africa had relied on small standing cadres for defence, during the Second World War the Union Defence Force initially fielded only 3,353 full-time soldiers, with another 14,631 active in reserve roles. These troops were not prepared to fight in Europe proper, as they had hitherto been trained only in light infantry tactics. However, Jan Christiaan Smuts proved remarkably resourceful in raising 345,049 men for operations, South African soldiers went on to distinguish themselves as far abroad as Italy. After 1957, the new South African Defence Force was faced with an upsurge in African nationalism. In 1963 its total strength stood at around 25,000 men, by 1977, the United Nations was imposing arms sanctions on the republic due to its controversial policy of racial apartheid. SADF units fought in the Angolan Civil War during Operation Savannah and were active alongside Rhodesian Security Forces during the Rhodesian Bush War. Further enlargement and modernisation of the armed forces continued under former defence minister Pieter Willem Botha and this was partially justified as a new structure intended to turn back a total onslaught on the republic from abroad. In 1984, at least 6,000 such insurgents were being trained and armed by Tanzania, Ethiopia, the Soviet Union, in general the struggle went badly for South Africas opponents. Mozambique provided support and shelter to ANC operatives, in retaliation South African units launched massive counterstrikes which the security forces were in no position to block. Military aircraft and special forces deployed across Zimbabwe, Botswana, Lesotho. 30,000 South African military personnel were posted on the Namibian border by late 1985, sWAPOs MPLA allies, with the backing of the Cuban army, were often unable to protect them. These raids reflected the SADFs talent for combating rural insurgency, major guerrilla camps were always chief targets, whether on foreign or domestic soil
11.
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela
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Winnie Madikizela-Mandela is a South African activist and politician who has held several government positions and headed the African National Congress Womens League. She is a member of the ANCs National Executive Committee and she was married to Nelson Mandela for 38 years, including 27 years during which he was imprisoned. Although they were married at the time of his becoming president of South Africa in May 1994. Their divorce was finalised on 19 March 1996, though Winnie Mandela continued to be a presence in Mandelas life in years despite his remarriage in 1998. Winnie could be seen almost daily visiting her former husband Nelson Mandela at the Mediclinic heart hospital in Pretoria where he was receiving treatment and she was offered academic honours abroad. She was born in the village of eMbongweni, Bizana, Pondoland and she was born the fourth out of eight children, which included seven sisters and a brother. Her parents, Columbus and Gertrude, were both teachers, Columbus was a history teacher and a headmaster, and Gertrude was a domestic science teacher. Gertrude died when Winnie was nine, resulting in the break-up of her family as all the siblings were sent to live with different relatives, Madikizela-Mandela went on to become the head girl of her high school in Bizana. After she matriculated she went to Johannesburg to study social work at the Jan Hofmeyer School and she earned her degree in social work in 1956, and several years later earned a bachelors degree in international relations from the University of Witwatersrand. She held a number of jobs in various parts of what was then the Bantustan of Transkei, including with the Transkei government, living at times in Bizana, Shawbury. Her first job was as a worker at Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto. She met lawyer and anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela in 1957 and she was 22 and standing at a bus stop in Soweto when Mandela first saw her and charmed her, securing a lunch date the following week. They married in 1958 and had two daughters, Zenani and Zindzi, Nelson Mandela was arrested in 1963 and released in 1990. The couple separated in 1992 and finalised the divorce in 1996 with an unspecified out-of-court settlement and her attempt to obtain a settlement up to US$5 million, half of what she claimed her ex-husband was worth, was dismissed when she failed to appear in court for a settlement hearing. When asked about the possibility of reconciliation in a 1994 interview, Winnie said, in fact, I am not the sort of person to carry beautiful flowers and be an ornament to everyone. Due to her activities, Winnie was regularly detained by the South African government. She was tortured, subjected to house arrest, kept under surveillance, held in confinement for over a year. She emerged as an opponent of apartheid during the later years of her husbands imprisonment
