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 The Nobel peace laureate, who was held in apartheid prisons for 27
years before emerging to preach forgiveness and reconciliation, was
laid to rest at his ancestral home in Qunu after a send-off
combining military pomp with the traditional rites of his Xhosa
abaThembu clan.
As the coffin was lowered into the wreath-ringed grave, three army
helicopters flew over bearing the South African flag on weighted
cables, a poignant echo of the anti-apartheid leader's inauguration
as the nation's first black president nearly two decades ago.
A battery fired a 21-gun salute, the booms reverberating around the
rolling hills of the Eastern Cape, before five fighter jets flying
low in formation roared over the valley.
"Yours was truly a long walk to freedom, and now you have achieved
the ultimate freedom in the bosom of your maker," armed forces
Chaplain General Monwabisi Jamangile said at the grave site, where
three of Mandela's children already lie.
Among the 450 mourners at the private burial ceremony were
relatives, political leaders and foreign guests including Britain's
Prince Charles, American civil rights activist Reverend Jesse
Jackson and talk show host Oprah Winfrey.
Mandela died aged 95 in Johannesburg on December 5, plunging his 52
million countrymen and women and millions more around the world into
grief, and triggering more than a week of official memorials to one
of the towering figures of the 20th century.
Over 100,000 people paid their respects in person at Mandela's lying
in state at Pretoria's Union Buildings, where he was sworn in as
president in 1994, an event that brought the curtain down on more
than three centuries of white domination.
When his body arrived on Saturday in Qunu, 700 km (450 miles) south
of Johannesburg, it was greeted by ululating locals overjoyed that
Madiba, the clan name by which he was affectionately known, had
"come home".
"After his long life and illness he can now rest," said grandmother
Victoria Ntsingo. "His work is done."
"GREATEST SON"
Before the burial, 4,500 family, friends and dignitaries attended
the state funeral service in a huge domed tent, its interior draped
in black, in a field near Mandela's homestead.
The flag-covered casket was carried in by military chiefs, with
Mandela's grandson and heir, Mandla, and South African President
Jacob Zuma following in their footsteps.
It was then placed on black and white Nguni cattle skins in front of
a crescent of 95 candles, one for each year of Mandela's life, as a
choir sang Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika, the national anthem adopted after
the end of apartheid in 1994.
"The person who is lying here is South Africa's greatest son," said
Cyril Ramaphosa, deputy leader of the ruling African National
Congress (ANC), who presided over the three-hour ceremony broadcast
live across the nation and around the world.
From the Limpopo River in the north to Cape Town in the south,
millions watched on television or listened to the radio. In some
locations, big screens transmitted the event live.
"Qunu is too far to go, so I gathered with some people here so we
can mourn together. I can say he is a hero, a man of the people,"
said 29-year-old Message Sibanda, among about 100 others watching in
Johannesburg's Sandton financial district.
"FAREWELL, MY BROTHER"
At the service, touching tributes were paid to the father of the
"Rainbow Nation" he helped forge from apartheid's ashes.
"Farewell my dear brother, my mentor, my leader," said lifelong
friend and fellow Robben Island inmate Ahmed Kathrada, his voice
cracking with emotion, drawing tears from mourners.
In his eulogy, Zuma paid tribute to a life that went from
freedom-fighter to political prisoner to president. He also briefly
turned attention to the future, pledging to continue Mandela's quest
for a free and equal society, free from racial discrimination.
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"Whilst the long walk to freedom has ended in the physical sense,
our own journey continues. We have to continue building the type of
society you worked tirelessly to construct. We have to take the
legacy forward," Zuma said.
The intense spotlight on the departed Mandela has highlighted the
gulf in stature between him and the scandal-plagued Zuma. The
current president is increasingly criticized for not doing enough to
reduce poverty and chronic unemployment and end gaping income
disparities that make South Africa one of the most unequal societies
in the world.
"DON'T CALL ME"
Mandela served just one term as leader of Africa's biggest and most
sophisticated economy, and formally withdrew from public life in
2004, famously telling reporters at the end of a farewell news
conference: "Don't call me, I'll call you."
His last appearance in public was at the 2010 World Cup final in
Johannesburg's Soccer City stadium, waving to fans from the back of
a golf cart.
Yet such was his influence as the architect of the historic
reconciliation between blacks and whites that his passing has left a
gaping hole at the heart of South Africa's psyche.
With an eye on elections in five months, the ANC, the 101-year-old
former liberation movement Mandela once led, has seized on his death
as a chance to shore up popularity that is ebbing even in its black
support base.
This calculation backfired badly at a Mandela memorial in
Johannesburg on Tuesday when Zuma, under fire for a $21 million
security upgrade to his private home, was booed and jeered in front
of world leaders including U.S. President Barack Obama.
But barring an upset next year, Zuma looks set for another five
years in office, during which he will have to address an economy
struggling to shake off a 2009 recession and the fragmentation of a
vital ANC alliance forged with the unions in the common struggle
against apartheid.
With unemployment at 25 percent and racial inequality still
painfully evident — the average white household earns six times more
than the average black one — pressure for radical economic
transformation is only likely to increase.
Against that backdrop, the party is desperate for strong leaders to
guide South Africa through the complexities of the 21st century
global economy and allow it to claim what it believes is its
rightful place at the world's top table.
There are questions whether Zuma, a polygamous Zulu traditionalist
with no formal education, can deliver this.
"We need to raise the level of leadership," former president Thabo
Mbeki, who was unceremoniously ousted by Zuma six years ago, said in
eulogies to Mandela last week.
"The transformation of South Africa is a very difficult task, I
think in many respects more difficult than the struggle to end the
system of apartheid."
(Additional reporting by David Dolan, Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo and
Pascal Fletcher in Johanensburg; editing by Pascal Fletcher and
Janet Lawrence)
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