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Thousands bid Mandela farewell
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Thousands queued yesterday to say farewell to Nelson Mandela, whose body is lying in state in Pretoria in the building where the anti-apartheid hero was inaugurated in 1994 as South Africa’s first black president.
Foreign dignitaries and celebrities joined thousands of South Africans at the imposing Union Buildings, perched on a hill overlooking Pretoria, for a last look at the man regarded as the father of democratic South Africa. Some carried infants on their backs.
Mandela’s flag-draped casket was met by officers representing branches of the military on its arrival from the capital’s main military hospital, in a formal ceremony that contrasted with Tuesday’s memorial.
Thousands of mourners lined the streets as a black hearse, led by a procession of police motorcycles, wound its way to the official seat of government.
Mandela’s death at the age of 95 led to an outpouring of grief and mourning in the country he led as president from 1994 to 1999, as well as celebration and thanksgiving for his life and achievements.
“This is a significant moment for me and my children,” said teacher Thapelo Dlamini, 48, who had been waiting on the street for two hours with his two children.
Traffic in Pretoria was gridlocked from early morning and shops along the procession route were closed.
The Nobel Peace laureate will be buried on Sunday in Qunu, his ancestral home in the rural Eastern Cape province, 700 kilometers south of Johannesburg.
Among those filing past Mandela’s casket were singer Bono, model Naomi Campbell and Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. F.W. de Klerk, South Africa’s last white president who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Mandela, appeared to wipe away a tear as he passed the coffin.
The mood was more sombre than jubilant, a marked departure from Tuesday’s memorial in Soweto, where the crowd danced and sang in the rain to honor Mandela’s memory and booed and jeered President Jacob Zuma.
Mandela’s death diverted attention from a raft of corruption scandals in Zuma’s administration, but it also underscored the gulf between South Africa’s first black president and its fourth.
Although critical of Zuma, South African newspapers reprimanded the crowd for booing during the service to commemorate a man famed for his ability to reconcile and forgive former enemies.
The heckling of Zuma, whose five years in office have been marked by scandal, feeble economic growth and social and labor unrest, is a worrying sign for the ruling African National Congress as it heads for elections next year.
But having won nearly 66 percent of the vote in 2009, it is unlikely to lose its majority.
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