Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Who was Winnie Mandela?
South African anti-apartheid campaigner and former first lady Winnie Madikizela-Mandela has died aged 81.
She and her former husband Nelson Mandela, who were both jailed, were a symbol of the country's anti-apartheid struggle for three decades.
However, in later years her reputation became tainted legally and politically.
Crowds of mourners and political figures flocked to her home in Soweto, in Johannesburg, after news of her death broke.
Family spokesman Victor Dlamini confirmed earlier on Monday that Mrs Mandela "succumbed peacefully in the early hours of Monday afternoon surrounded by her family and loved ones" following a long illness, which had seen her go in and out of hospital since the start of the year.
'Mother of the Nation'
Mrs Madikizela-Mandela was born in 1936 in the Eastern Cape - then known as Transkei.
She was a trained social worker when she met her future husband in the 1950s. They went on to have two daughters together.
They were married for a total of 38 years, although for almost three decades of that time they were separated due to Mr Mandela's long imprisonment.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption "I know my soul is scarred": Winnie Mandela on her and Nelson's struggle
It was Mrs Madikizela-Mandela who took his baton after he was jailed for life, becoming an international symbol of resistance to apartheid. She too was jailed for her role in the fight for justice and equality.
To her supporters, she became known affectionately as "Mother of the Nation".
Who has paid tribute?
In a televised address President Cyril Ramaphosa - whom Mrs Madikizela-Mandela praised earlier this year - called her as a "voice of defiance" against white-minority rule.
Image copyright AFP Image caption Mrs Madikizela-Mandela outside court the day her husband was sentenced to life in prison
"In the face of exploitation, she was a champion of justice and equality," he said on Monday.
"She as an abiding symbol of the desire of our people to be free".
Retired archbishop and Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu said she was a "defining symbol of the struggle against apartheid".
"Her courageous defiance was deeply inspirational to me, and to generations of activists," he added.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The BBC's Mike Wooldridge watches as Nelson Mandela was released from prison
Energy Minister Jeff Radebe, reading out a statement on behalf of the family, paid tribute to "a colossus who strode the Southern African political landscape".
"As the ANC we dip our revolutionary banner in salute of this great icon of our liberation struggle," he said.
"The Mandela family are deeply grateful for the gift of her life and even as our hearts break at her passing we urge all those who loved her to celebrate this most remarkable South African woman."
African National Congress (ANC) chairperson Gwede Mantashe said: "With the departure of Mama Winnie, [we have lost] one of the very few who are left of our stalwarts and icons. She was one of those who would tell us exactly what is wrong and right, and we are going to be missing that guidance."
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa paid tribute to the 'Mother of the Nation"
South Africa's pride and joy - and my neighbour
Analysis by Milton Nkosi, BBC News, Johannesburg
I knew Winnie Madikizela-Mandela personally. We come from the same neighbourhood in Soweto.
To many, she was the pride and joy of the nation, an icon in her own right - never mind the fact she was Nelson Mandela's wife.
Mrs Madikizela-Mandela was also the first black social worker in the country. Her love and desire to help those in need was always burning from deep inside.
But she was not nothing but sweet talk. She met the brutality of racial segregation with fire. Each time the police came to arrest her at her home in Orlando West, she held her own.
She never gave in. Not one inch - and sometimes, this landed her in trouble. As anti-apartheid activist Mosioua Lekota noted in her defence: "Those who did nothing under apartheid never made mistakes."
She will be remembered for her fight against an inhumane system, rather than for the mistakes she made in that fight.
Why was she controversial?
However, Mrs Madikizela-Mandela found herself mired in scandal for decades.
She was accused of conducting a virtual reign of terror in parts of Soweto by other members of the ANC in the late 1980s, and heard backing the practice of "necklacing" - putting burning tyres around suspected informants' necks.
She was also found guilty of kidnapping and sentenced to six years' imprisonment for her involvement in the death of 14-year-old township militant Stompie Seipei. She always denied the allegation, and the sentence was reduced to a fine.
Image copyright Reuters Image caption Mrs Madikizela-Mandela (pictured in 1988) became a symbol for the anti-apartheid movement in her own right
Mr Mandela, who stood by her throughout the accusations, was finally released from prison in February 1990.
But two years later, their marriage crumbled. The couple divorced in 1996, but she kept his surname and maintained ties with him.
She stayed involved in politics, but was again embroiled in controversy when she was convicted of fraud in 2003.
South African anti-apartheid campaigner and former wife of Nelson Mandela became mired in controversy
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, a hero of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa but also one of its most controversial figures, has died aged 81.
The ex-wife of the former South African president Nelson Mandela, she died at a hospital in Johannesburg after a long illness, her personal assistant, Zodwa Zwane, said.
Winnie Mandela was loved and loathed, but she earned her place in history | Ralph Mathekga Read more
Seen as the “mother of the nation” by many who admired her steely leadership, firebrand rhetoric and courageous activism against a brutal racist regime, Madikizela-Mandela was also repeatedly accused of being linked to violence andcorruption.
She was one of the few remaining representatives of the generation of activists who led the fight against apartheid. Her often negative image abroad contrasts with her deep and long-lasting popularity within her homeland.
A statement from her family said the former political prisoner, who used her family name of Madikizela after her divorce, had been “in and out of hospital since the beginning of the year”.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Nelson and Winnie Mandela at their wedding in Transkei, South Africa, in 1958. Photograph: Sipa Press/REX/Shutterstock
“She succumbed peacefully surrounded by her family and loved ones in the early hours of Monday afternoon,” the statement said.
“Mrs Madikezela-Mandela was one of the greatest icons of the struggle against apartheid. She fought valiantly against the apartheid state … sacrificed her life for the freedom of the country and helped to give the struggle for justice in South Africa one of its most recognisable faces.”
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, another veteran of the struggle, was among those paying tribute. He said she was “a defining symbol” of the anti-apartheid struggle whose “courageous defiance was deeply inspirational to ... generations of activists”.
Fikile Mbalula, a senior member of the African National Congress (ANC), described “Mama Winnie” as “a great symbol for the resistance against a brutal government”.
Jeff Radebe, South Africa’s minister of energy, said: “Mama Winnie Mandela was recognised by the people as the Mother of the Nation. As the ANC we dip our banner.”
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela obituary Read more
Yet there was a darker side. “What you have in her is both the sense of possibility and failure together; hope and disappointment,” Njabulo Ndebele, the author of a novel about her life, told the Guardian in 2011.
Born in the poor Eastern Cape province, Madikizela-Mandela’s childhood was “a blistering inferno of racial hatred”, in the words of British biographer Emma Gilbey, and she became further politicised at an early age in her job as a hospital social worker.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Nelson Mandela and his then wife Winnie after his release from prison in February 1990. Photograph: Reuters
Attractive, articulate, clever and committed, the 22-year-old Winnie caught the eye of Mandela, 18 years her elder, at a Soweto bus stop in 1957. They were married a year later.
But the union was short-lived. Mandela had gone underground by 1960, was arrested in 1962 and sentenced to life imprisonment for treason.
During her husband’s 27-year incarceration, Madikizela-Mandela campaigned tirelessly for his release and for the rights of black South Africans, establishing a massive personal following.
Tortured and subjected to repeated house arrest, she was kept under surveillance and, in 1977, banished to a remote town in another province.
Madikizela-Mandela said the experience of more than a year in solitary confinement changed her. “What brutalised me so much was that I knew what it is to hate,” she said.
“The years of imprisonment hardened me ... Perhaps if you have been given a moment to hold back and wait for the next blow, your emotions wouldn’t be blunted as they have been in my case. When it happens every day of your life, when that pain becomes a way of life ... there is no longer anything I can fear. There is nothing the government has not done to me. There isn’t any pain I haven’t known.”
As the violence of the apartheid authorities reached new intensity, Madikizela-Mandela was drawn into a world of internecine betrayal, reprisals and atrocity.
“We have no guns – we have only stones, boxes of matches and petrol,” she told a township crowd. “Together, hand-in-hand, with our boxes of matches and our necklaces we shall liberate this country.” Necklacing was the term for killing a perceived traitor with a petrol-filled burning tyre around the neck.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Madikizela-Mandela at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service in December 2013. Photograph: Herman Verwey/REX/Shutterstock
Most notoriously, Madikizela-Mandela was found guilty of ordering the kidnapping of a 14-year-old boy, Stompie Seipei, also known as Stompie Moeketsi, who was beaten and later had his throat slit by members of her personal bodyguard, the “Mandela United Football Club”, in 1989.
Within a year, she gave the clenched-fist salute of black power as she walked hand-in-hand with Mandela out of Cape Town’s Victor Verster prison on 11 February 1990.
For husband and wife, it was a crowning moment that led four years later to the end of centuries of white domination when Mandela became South Africa’s first black president.
But for Madikizela-Mandela, the end of apartheid marked the start of a string of legal and political troubles that, accompanied by tales of her glamorous lifestyle, kept her in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons.
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela: a life in pictures Read more
Appearing at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) set up to account for atrocities committed by both sides in the anti-apartheid struggle, Madikizela-Mandela refused to show remorse for abductions and murders carried out in her name.
Only after pleading from Tutu, the anguished TRC chairman, did she admit grudgingly that “things went horribly wrong”.
In its final report, the TRC ruled that Madikizela-Mandela was “politically and morally accountable for the gross violations of human rights committed by the MUFC”.
She and Mandela separated in 1992 and her reputation slipped further when he sacked her from his cabinet in 1995 after allegations of corruption. The couple divorced a year later.
“I have a good relationship with Mandela. But I am not Mandela’s product. I am the product of the masses of my country and the product of my enemy,” she told reporters.
Still unafraid of controversy and still popular, in 2008 she took up the cause of immigrants who had come under attack in widespread riots. A year later, she won a parliamentary seat.
Though she was harsh about his record in office, Madikizela-Mandela could be seen almost daily visiting her ailing former husband during his last months in 2013.
In her last interview, given last month and rebroadcast on Monday afternoon by state broadcasters, Madikizela-Mandela spoke of how she had always put the collective good of the ANC before her individual wellbeing.
The party, in government in South Africa since the 1994 elections, faces a tough election next year. Officials and supporters hope that the new president, Cyril Ramaphosa, who took power in February, can reverse the decline in support suffered by the ANC under previous incumbent Jacob Zuma.
Ramaphosa’s office said the president would be visiting Madikizela-Mandela’s home in Soweto on Monday evening.
Though analysts have now upgraded expectations of economic growth in South Africa, huge challenges remain. Unemployment remains at an historic high of 27.7% across the general population and as high as 68% among young people. Corruption has not just undermined public finances but also public confidence in the state.
“I would be extremely naive if i suggested to you that South Africa today is what we dreamt of when we gave up our lives .... We came from a very brutal period of our history, a country that was segregated, [and] to transition from that era to where we are today has been a really painful journey, ” Madikizela-Mandela said in the interview.
Madikizela-Mandela’s given name, Nomzamo, has been variously translated as “one who strives” and “she who must endure trials”.
During Nelson Mandela’s 1962 trial in Pretoria, before he was sent to Robben Island, Winnie turned up each day, often magnificent in traditional chiefdom dress.
My anti-apartheid activist mother Adelaine was often alone, showing solidarity, in the whites-only section of the public gallery. Once, when my younger sisters went with her, dressed in their primary school uniforms, Winnie bent down and kissed them, to the very evident horror and disgust of the onlooking white policemen, who spat and cursed. The very notion of a black woman behaving that way towards two blonde girls offended every apartheid instinct. But Winnie didn’t care.
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela obituary Read more
She was indomitably defiant. Later, suffering so much and bringing up her own two girls while Nelson Mandela served his 27 years in prison, she was beaten up, banned, then banished to remote Brandfort in the Orange Free State, harassed and imprisoned too.
Once, when relatives turned up unexpectedly in Brandfort, she was convicted of contravening her banning order. This, among many other things, restricted her to meeting only one person at a time. Fearless in the face of the apartheid police state, she became the increasingly iconic representative of Nelson Mandela.
She also tutored him. Winnie was among the first to understand the significance when, in 1976, black children were gunned down while protesting against apartheid schooling in Soweto, outside Johannesburg. Soweto exploded, triggering fresh resistance and repression in other black townships throughout the country.
Tragic, heroic and ultimately deeply flawed, Winnie can be correctly criticised for her rogue later life
Visiting Mandela on Robben Island, she urged him to identify with and support this new wave of unrest, even when it took the form of a wave of “black consciousness” that veterans in his African National Congress saw as offensive to their non-racialism.
It was nothing of the kind. Mandela listened to Winnie, and embraced the young activists, who soon began joining him on the Island, rebellious and suspicious of his old guard.
The two had fallen in love after Nelson, two decades older, had spotted the vivacious, charismatic young social worker waiting for a bus as he drove past.
But as she later observed, she never had the conventional marriage she hoped for. She had married a freedom fighter, not a husband. Soon he was on trial, then released, then driven underground when they would occasionally meet illicitly; he hardly knew his two daughters when he was sent to prison.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Nelson and Winnie Mandela in their wedding day Photograph: AFP/Getty
Security services made it as difficult as possible for her to visit, preventing her from travelling by train, forcing her to fly or drive the 800 miles. Mandela’s letters to her displayed a touching affection and deep admiration. Throughout, she was steadfast in his support. But she became increasingly wayward, taking younger lovers into her new Soweto home. In the 1980s she became embroiled in the murky murder of young activist Stompie Moeketsie, for which she was later tried and found guilty, the judge labelling her “a liar”.
Nelson, after his release, spoke of being the “loneliest man” after their divorce. But he never shunned her. She had become a quasi-revolutionary to Mandela’s reformism in the transition from apartheid to non-racial democracy, presaging a debate live today, especially among younger elements in South Africa.
Tragic, heroic and ultimately deeply flawed, Winnie can be correctly criticised for her rogue later life, but her courage and radical spirit in adversity should never be forgotten.
• Peter Hain is a former Labour MP and minister for Africa. His biography, Mandela: His Essential Life, will be published by Rowman & Littlefield in July
(CNN) Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the South African anti-apartheid campaigner and former wife of the late President Nelson Mandela, has died at age 81.
The family said in a statement that she passed away at the Netcare Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg, South Africa after a long illness, for which she had been in and out of hospital since the start of the year.
"Mrs. Madikizela-Mandela was one of the greatest icons of the struggle against apartheid," the statement said. "She fought valiantly against the apartheid state and sacrificed her life for the freedom of the country."
Her death came as a shock. "None of us had predicted this," a family spokesman told CNN.
Madikizela-Mandela was known as the "Mother of the Nation" because of her struggle against white-minority rule in South Africa.
Nelson and Winnie Mandela raise clenched fists to supporters upon Nelson's release from jail in February 1990.
She was married to Nelson Mandela for 38 years, including the 27 years he was imprisoned on an island near Cape Town.
"She kept the memory of her imprisoned husband Nelson Mandela alive during his years on Robben Island and helped give the struggle for justice in South Africa one of its most recognizable faces," the statement said.
The couple were divorced in 1996, two years after Nelson Mandela became South Africa's first black President. They had two daughters together. Nelson Mandela died in 2013.
A longtime stalwart of the ruling African National Congress, or ANC, political party, Madikizela-Mandela was a member of South Africa's parliament at the time of her death.
One of the last official visits she received was from current South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who went with her to Soweto township last month to encourage people to register to vote in next year's presidential election.
On Monday, Ramaphosa praised Madikizela-Mandela as "an advocate for the dispossessed and the marginalized" and "a voice for the voiceless."
"Even at the darkest moments of our struggle for liberation, Mam' Winnie was an abiding symbol of the desire of our people to be free," Ramaphosa said in a statement. "In the midst of repression, she was a voice of defiance and resistance. In the face of exploitation, she was a champion of justice and equality."
A memorial service for Mandela will be held April 11 and an "official national" funeral will be April 14, Ramaphosa said.
A link to the outside world
Photos: The life of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, an anti-apartheid activist in South Africa and the former wife of late President Nelson Mandela, has died at the age of 81. The outspoken campaigner was known as the "Mother of the Nation" because of her struggle against white minority rule in South Africa. She was a member of South Africa's parliament at the time of her death. Hide Caption 1 of 21 Photos: The life of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Winnie Madikizela and Nelson Mandela married in South Africa in 1958. Hide Caption 2 of 21 Photos: The life of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela The Mandelas were married for 38 years, including the 27 years that he was imprisoned on an island near Cape Town, South Africa. Hide Caption 3 of 21 Photos: The life of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela People gather in support of Madikizela-Mandela as she leaves a court in Pretoria, South Africa, in 1964. Her husband had just been sentenced to life in prison. Hide Caption 4 of 21 Photos: The life of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Madikizela-Mandela is pictured in 1977, during her exile in Brandfort, South Africa. Hide Caption 5 of 21 Photos: The life of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Madikizela-Mandela, center, celebrates alongside her daughter Zindzi and other supporters following her release from Johannesburg Magistrates Court. She had been arrested for defying a court order that banned her from entering Soweto, an area at the center of the anti-apartheid movement in Johannesburg. Hide Caption 6 of 21 Photos: The life of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Madikizela-Mandela and her two daughters -- Zenani, left, and Zindzi -- arrive at Cape Town's airport to visit her imprisoned husband in 1985. Hide Caption 7 of 21 Photos: The life of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Madikizela-Mandela is pictured with her grandson in 1986. Hide Caption 8 of 21 Photos: The life of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Madikizela-Mandela poses in traditional dress in 1986. Hide Caption 9 of 21 Photos: The life of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Madikizela-Mandela appears at an African National Congress rally in Soweto. Hide Caption 10 of 21 Photos: The life of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Nelson Mandela is joined by his wife after being released from prison in February 1990. Hide Caption 11 of 21 Photos: The life of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Mandela leans in to kiss his wife at a rally in March 1990. Hide Caption 12 of 21 Photos: The life of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela A portrait of the Mandelas. The pair divorced in 1996. Hide Caption 13 of 21 Photos: The life of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela The Mandelas meet with Coretta Scott King, widow of civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., in 1990. Hide Caption 14 of 21 Photos: The life of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela The Mandelas are welcomed by former first lady Jackie Kennedy during a visit to Boston in 1990. Hide Caption 15 of 21 Photos: The life of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Madikizela-Mandela shakes hands with supporters in Rustenburg, South Africa, in 1997. She had just been elected president of the African National Congress Women's League. Hide Caption 16 of 21 Photos: The life of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Madikizela-Mandela leads a protest march during an international AIDS conference in Durban, South Africa, in 2000. Hide Caption 17 of 21 Photos: The life of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Madikizela-Mandela, right, joins her ex-husband and his third wife, Graca Machel, during his 90th birthday celebrations in Tshwane, South Africa, in 2008. Hide Caption 18 of 21 Photos: The life of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Madikizela-Mandela attends her ex-husband's state funeral in 2013. Hide Caption 19 of 21 Photos: The life of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Madikizela-Mandela greets a crowd of supporters in Soweto for her 80th birthday in 2016. Hide Caption 20 of 21 Photos: The life of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Madikizela-Mandela joins the hands of South African President Jacob Zuma, left, and Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa during an African National Congress policy conference in 2017. Hide Caption 21 of 21
Born in 1936 in what is now known as the Eastern Cape province, Nomzamo Winifred Madikizela was the daughter of a history teacher.
As a young social worker, she married Nelson Mandela in 1958 at age 22, and stood by him in the years following his 1964 conviction and life imprisonment sentence for sabotage and conspiracy to overthrow the government.
Madikizela-Mandela led an international campaign calling for his release.
While Nelson Mandela was banned from reading newspapers, his wife was his link to the outside world. Madikizela-Mandela told him of the changes taking place in his homeland and became his often outspoken and controversial public voice.
Nelson Mandela was finally freed in 1990. His defiance of white-minority rule and his long incarceration for fighting against state-sanctioned segregation focused world attention on South Africa's apartheid system, making him the symbol of the struggle to end the practice and bring racial equality to his country.
Outside Africa, Madikizela-Mandela was known largely because of her ex-husband, but in South Africa she was the mouthpiece and face of the bitter struggle against the racist regime.
"She refused to be bowed by the imprisonment of her husband, the perpetual harassment of her family by security forces, detentions, bannings and banishment," said Archbishop Desmond Tutu in a statement. "Her courageous defiance was deeply inspirational to me, and to generations of activists."
A controversial legacy
Although Madikizela-Mandela, who suffered from diabetes, helped usher in a new, more equitable South African political system during her lifetime, she was also entangled in a number of scandals over the years.
In December 1988, her bodyguards, known as the Mandela United Football Club, kidnapped four boys belonging to another anti-apartheid party. One of them, Stompie Moeketsi, was murdered a few days later.
In May 1991 she was sentenced to six years in prison for kidnapping in relation to the incident, but the sentence was later reduced to a fine.
Madikizela-Mandela bounced back and in 1993 was elected president of the ANC's women's league. In 1994, when her then-husband became President, she was elected to parliament and became deputy arts and science minister in the country's first multi-racial government.
Winnie and Nelson Mandela in Soweto, South Africa in February 1990.
Ever the feisty campaigner, Madikizela-Mandela continued to provoke controversy with her attacks on the government and her strident appeals to radical young black followers.
She was expelled from her husband's cabinet a year later.
Madikizela-Mandela was re-elected for a second parliamentary term in 1999 but resigned four years later after she was convicted of fraudulently taking out bank loans and theft -- the loans were used to help poor people.
Her conviction for theft was overturned a year later because she had not recognized any personal gain from her actions.
South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission also accused her of human rights abuses during the apartheid years.
Something of a firebrand, she continued to clash with successive ANC presidents in and out of parliament for the rest of her life.
Winnie Mandela (C) holds the hands of then-President Jacob Zuma (L) and future President Cyril Ramaphosa at the ANC conference in June 2017.
Tributes to Madikizela-Mandela
Madikizela-Mandela was also close to Julius Malema, the leader of the left-wing populist Economic Freedom Fighters opposition party. He made his tribute on Twitter with a simple black frame and crying emojis.
In 2011, Madikizela-Mandela was the subject of a Hollywood biopic starring Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Hudson, along with an opera that premiered in Pretoria, South Africa. She did not like the film.
"I was not consulted," she told CNN in June that year. "I am still alive, and I think that it is a total disrespect to come to South Africa, make a movie about my struggle, and call that movie some translation of a romantic life of Winnie Mandela."
The 2017 British documentary "Winnie" painted a more realistic portrait of her. As the tributes continued to roll in Monday, one of the most tweeted was from the British actor Idris Elba.
Rest in peace Mama Winnie. My heart is heavy right now. You lived a full and important life contributing to the liberation of a nation by force and ACTUAL ACTIVISM. You will never be forgotten. 👊🏾 — Idris Elba (@idriselba) April 2, 2018
"Rest in peace Mama Winnie. My heart is heavy right now," the actor wrote. You lived a full and important life contributing to the liberation of a nation by force and ACTUAL ACTIVISM. You will never be forgotten."
South Africa's parliament said it was "shocked and saddened" by Madikizela-Mandela's death.
"Today we have indeed lost a great leader, a champion of freedom and development, a people's hero, and a Mother, and a defender of the down-trodden," it said in statement Monday. "May her soul rest in peace."
