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500 Guests Celebrate Mandela

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The Associated Press

Published: July 20, 2008

QUNU, South Africa - Songs, laughter, teasing and tender words marked Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday celebration Saturday as presidents, village elders and African royalty joined him for a festive luncheon on his rural homestead.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner celebrated privately with his family in this rural southeastern village Friday, the day he turned 90. Saturday was a grand occasion, held in a tent outside his homestead in Qunu, 600 miles south of Johannesburg, where as a boy he herded cattle in the hills.

The anti-apartheid icon walked into the tent with his successor to the South African presidency, Thabo Mbeki, and African National Congress leader Jacob Zuma, stopping to personally greet some of the 500 guests as he made his way to the head table.

The guests, many dressed in traditional beaded cloths and feather headdresses, stood and cheered while a Xhosa choir sang: "Here is our hope!"

Mbeki called Mandela a "great liberator." Zuma said the gathering was a celebration of "a life and legacy of a father, grandfather, comrade, warrior, soldier, nation builder and statesman."

Mandela rose and spoke for a few minutes with characteristic self-deprecating humor.

"As you know, I am not a speaker at all, and I am not going to make any exception on this occasion, except to say thank you for all you have done for me," he said.

Mandela was imprisoned for nearly three decades for his fight against apartheid. He was released in 1990 to lead negotiations that ended decades of racist white rule, then was elected president in South Africa's first democratic elections in 1994.

He completed his term in 1999 and did not run again, but has continued to take a leading role in the fight against poverty, illiteracy and AIDS in Africa.

'NELSON!'

Memorable moments in Nelson Mandela's life:

•For most of his 27 years in prison, Mandela was neither seen nor heard, and his most famous utterance was delivered at his 1964 trial on charges of plotting sabotage: "During my lifetime, I have dedicated myself to the struggle of the African people. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die."

•In 1990, crowds and TV cameras greeted Mandela as he walked free from prison, hand in hand with his then wife, Winnie Mandela.

•When South Africa's rugby team won the 1995 World Cup, Mandela, now South Africa's first black president, walked onto the field wearing the team uniform and congratulated the players. It was taken as a stunning gesture of reconciliation. The fans in the stadium, most of them white, male and Afrikaner, many of them in tears, rose to their feet chanting, "Nelson! Nelson! Nelson!"

The Associated Press

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