Nelson Mandela: Obama meets Mandela family, police disperse protesters

Nelson Mandela: On Saturday, President Barack Obama met with relatives of former South African President Nelson Mandela, the anti-apartheid hero who remains critically ill. While visiting South Africa, Obama has faced protests over US foreign policy and drones.  

|
Ben Curtis/AP
A child look at paintings of President Barack Obama, (r.), and former South African President Nelson Mandela, outside the Mediclinic Heart Hospital where Nelson Mandela is being treated in Pretoria, South Africa Saturday. Obama encouraged leaders in Africa and around the world to follow Mandela's example of country before self, before paying personal respects to relatives who have been gathered around the critically ill anti-apartheid icon.

US President Barack Obama met the family of South Africa's ailing anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela on Saturday and he praised the critically ill, retired statesman as one of history's greatest figures.

The faltering health of Mandela, 94, a figure admired globally as a symbol of struggle against injustice and racism, is dominating Obama's two-day visit to South Africa.

But Obama also faced protests by South Africans against US foreign policy, especially American drone strikes.

Police fired stun grenades on Saturday to disperse several hundred protesters who had gathered outside the Soweto campus of the University of Johannesburg, where Obama was due to address a town hall meeting with students.

Obama, in South Africa on the second leg of a three-nation Africa tour, met Mandela relatives to deliver a message of support instead of directly visiting the former president at the hospital where he has spent the last three weeks.

The meeting took place at the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory in Johannesburg.

Obama told reporters afterwards he also spoke by telephone with Mandela's wife Graca Machel, who remained by her husband's side in the hospital in Pretoria.

"I expressed my hope that Madiba draws peace and comfort from the time that he is spending with loved ones, and also expressed my heartfelt support for the entire family as they work through this difficult time," he said, using the clan name Madiba by which Mandela is affectionately known.

Obama earlier had talks with South African President Jacob Zuma and the two held a joint news conference in which Zuma said Mandela remained in a "critical but stable condition".

Obama's visit to South Africa had stirred intense speculation that the first African-American president of theUnited States would look in on the first black president of South Africa in his hospital room.

But Mandela's deterioration in the last week to a critical condition forced the White House to rule out the possibility of Obama and his wife seeing the frail ex-statesman.

Speaking to reporters at Pretoria's Union Buildings, where Mandela was inaugurated as president in 1994, Obama said the prayers of millions around the world were with the Nobel Peace laureate, who lay just one km (mile) away in hospital.

Adding to his previous praise of Mandela, Obama likened him to first US president George Washington because of the decision of both to step down at the peak of their power.

"What an incredible lesson that is," Obama said, calling Mandela "one of the greatest people in history".

Obama had said on Thursday he did not "need a photo op" with Mandela, whom he met in 2005 in Washington when he was a US senator.

"BOUND BY HISTORY"

After holding talks with Obama, Zuma said Mandela's critical condition was unchanged. "We hope that very soon he will be out of hospital," he added, without giving further details.

In welcoming Obama, Zuma underscored the historical similarities between Mandela and his US guest in overcoming decades of institutionalised racism and discrimination to rise to the highest political office.

"The two of you are also bound by history as the first black presidents of your respective countries," Zuma said. "You both carry the dreams of the millions of people in Africa and the diaspora."

On Sunday, Obama flies to Cape Town from which he will visit Robben Island, the windswept former penal colony in the frigid waters of the south Atlantic where Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years in apartheid jails.

Zuma said Mandela had told him before his latest hospitalisation that "when I go to sleep I will be very happy because I left South Africa going forward".

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Nelson Mandela: Obama meets Mandela family, police disperse protesters
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2013/0629/Nelson-Mandela-Obama-meets-Mandela-family-police-disperse-protesters
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe