Late Nelson Mandela Revisits His Prison Cell on Robben Island

Nelson Mandela revisits his prison cell on Robben Island

Eager to forgive but not forget, Mandela supports the findings of The Truth and Reconciliation Committee, set up to investigate crimes of the apartheid years. He hands the ANC reins to Thabo Mbeki and marries Graca Machel 

Nelson Mandela was already 75 when he became President in 1994, and relied heavily on his deputy, Thabo Mbeki, for the running of the day-to-day business of government. To many he appeared more like a constitutional monarch than a chief executive.

It was a role he discharged brilliantly, as when he associated himself with South Africa’s victory in the Rugby World Cup of 1995. He continued to preach the gospel of reconciliation, not least to the Afrikaners. He went to see ex-President Botha, who took advantage of the occasion to warn him against Communists. He took tea with Betsy Verwoerd, the widow of Hendrik Verwoerd, the intellectual builder of apartheid. Mandela even found time for a lunch with Percy Yutar, the vindictive prosecutor who had tried to have him executed at the Rivonia Trial. A mellow and humbled Yutar declared that he was struck by “the great humility of this saintly man”. 

But though Mandela was eager to forgive, he did not mean people to forget. The Truth and Reconciliation Committee was set up in 1996 to investigate the crimes of the apartheid years; and Mandela supported its findings even when some were strongly critical of the ANC.

He gave up the leadership of the ANC in 1997, handing over to Thabo Mbeki. Though 79, he spoke for four-and-a-half hours at the party’s conference, standing up in a stifling hall. In uncharacteristically negative vein, he warned the ANC against corruption, criticised white businessmen, and raised the spectre of an Afrikaner counter-revolution. 

Nelson Mandela with the Queen after he was made an honorary member of the Order of Merit in 1995

Those who saw Mandela in private found him impenetrable in his reserve. In public and abroad, however, this intensely self-contained man basked in universal affection. He established a warm friendship with the Queen, who paid a State Visit to South Africa in 1995 and appointed him an honorary member of the Order of Merit.
On her invitation, he made a return State Visit to Britain in 1996, when he became the first person since Charles de Gaulle in 1960 to be invited to address the Houses of Parliament in Westminster Hall. Everywhere he went — and he loved to travel — he was received as one of the great men of the century.
His domestic life, moreover, normalised after 1995 when he became closely associated with Graca Machel, the widow of the former president of Mozambique, and herself a former Minister of Education in that country. They married on Mandela’s 80th birthday in 1998. 

Nelson Mandela and his wife Graca Machel in London in 2007

The next year, he handed over the presidency to Mbeki, declaring his willingness to retire. By serving only one term and then leaving office in a dignified and entirely legal manner, Mandela set another example to a continent filled with leaders obsessed with clinging to power.
But he also handed over many unaddressed problems: a gathering Aids epidemic, a stagnant economy, astonishing levels of violent crime, and a cabinet stuffed with ANC time-servers. Mandela, a born and unsurpassable head of state, was by many measures a failure as chief executive.
In July 2001 Mandela was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and three years later he announced his retirement from public life. Although he made occasional forays into international politics — he was particularly critical of the foreign policy of the George W Bush administration and of the war in Iraq — for the most part he devoted himself to campaigning for social and human rights organisations and for charities.
In January 2005 he struck a blow against the stigma attached to Aids by announcing that his son, Makgatho, had died of the epidemic. This personal tragedy meant that, added to the deaths of Thembi, who was killed in a car accident while his father was in prison in 1969, and Makaziwe in infancy, Mandela had buried three of his six children before his own death.

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, and daughters Zinzi and Zoleka Mandela attend the funeral of Zenani Mandela, Nelson Mandela's great granddaughter, who died in a car crash

Nelson Mandela’s first wife, Evelyn, predeceased him. He is survived by his second and third wives, Winnie and Graca, and by a daughter of his first marriage and two daughters of his second.
Nelson Mandela, born July 18 1918, died December 5 2013.