Prominent Figures of the 20th Century...Prominent Figures of the 20th Century...

Mandela gets his freedom & his country's 

  Mandela's release

After 27 years in prison, Mandela was eventually released on the 11^th of February 1990 by the government of F.W. de Klerk, which also lifted the ban on the ANC. Some people imagined he would come out full of hatred and the desire to take revenge. But instead, they saw a calm face & heard kind words asking the people of the country to unify.

He led difficult negotiations with the government from 1990 till 1994. The first conference of the ANC in South Africa was held in 1991. Mandela was elected its president, & Oliver Tambo its National Chairperson. They agreed to cease armed struggle, but occasionally, it seemed that the talks were collapsing & there was fear violence would take over again. But fortunately, this never happened.

Mandela got honorary degrees from over 50 international universities. He shared the Nobel Peace prize with De Klerk in 1993 for their efforts to achieve a peaceful transition to multiracial democracy in South Africa.

  The first black president of S. Africa

The country's first national elections were held, & all races could vote. On the 10^th of May 1994, Mandela became the first democratically elected black president of South Africa.

He filed for divorce from his wife Winnie in August 1995 and they were divorced in March 1996. He announced in September that he was engaged in a relationship with Graca Machel, widow of former president of Mozambique Samora Machel. They later got married on his 80^th birthday in 1998.

In December, he signed the post-apartheid law. He worked to ease racial tension & help victims of apartheid. He was a great diplomat within Africa, one of his peacemaking jobs was as a third party in the civil war in Zaïre in 1997.                                     

  Mandela, the ordinary citizen

He resigned as ANC president in December 1997, & his    vice-president Thabo Mbeki came into power. Thus Mandela  became an ordinary citizen. He retired from public life in June 1999, & now lives peacefully in his birth place (Qunu), surrounded with the love of his people & family (he has 21 grand-children & 3 great grand-children), but is still a symbol    to the triumph of the human spirit over man's inhumanity to his fellow men.