South Africa, especially Johannesburg, prepares today for a grand funeral service and to express a last farewell to former President Nelson Mandela as the country awaits the arrival of presidents from dozens of nations. Mandela died at his home in Houghton, Johannesburg, on Thursday at the age of 95.
The memorial service is scheduled to take place at the FNB Stadium in Soweto on Tuesday.
Later, the remains of the revered anti-apartheid fighter shall lie from the 11th to the 13th of December at the seat of government at the Union Buildings, where Mandela served between 1994 and 1999 as the first black president of a democratic South Africa.
Finally, the Nobel Peace Prize will be honored with a state funeral in the village of Qunu, his home province in Eastern Cape, 907 kilometers towards the east of Pretoria.
The list of presidents who will assist these public events include U.S. President Barack Obama and former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
National authorities expect the assistance of many statesmen, business leaders, party leaders, and ministerial delegations from the African continent, Asia and the Middle East.
This Saturday morning the candles still flickered and many flags were waving in front of houses related to Mandela in Vilakazi Street, Soweto and Houghton, north of Johannesburg.
Hundreds of citizens living in South Africa’s nine provinces are also coming up near Union Buildings to deliver letters of condolence or to sign the book of honor. The African National Congress, the party that galvanized popular support to overthrow the racist apartheid regime after 1990, created a website on the internet to allow everyone in the world to post on Mandela.
Leaders of the main political parties paid honor to the late South African icon of the struggle for human dignity, who agreed he also qualified as a mentor of actions in defense of individual liberty. South African ex president Frederik Willem de Klerk said he had received with bitter surprise and dismay the news of the death of Nelson Mandela, because of a lung infection resulting from his long period in prison.
Mandela spent nearly three decades in prison after being convicted in 1964 of sabotage and attempting to overthrow the apartheid government against which he fought since the middle of last century.
Nelson Mandela, lawyer, was released in 1990 and four years later became the first black president in South Africa’s history.
Lung problems that affected him since 2011 were caused mainly by the years he was interned in appalling conditions in the prison of Robben Island, at the southern tip of the country.
As a result of the preparations for the funeral, all hotels and car rental in the Gauteng province were sold out starting this Friday, the government reported in a note.
This special condition will remain from December 6 until 25, but will not affect bookings confirmed and paid for a stage before this resolution, Sakawsky said. (PL)