Anti-apartheid icon and activist Winnie Madikizela-Mandela passes away at the age of 81

ANTI-apartheid icon Winne Madikizela-Mandela has passed away at the age of 81 after succumbing to a long illness this afternoon at the Netcare Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg surrounded by her family.

Iconic and seen as the public face of the fight against apartheid when her husband, former President Nelson Mandela was in jail, Winnie was popularly referred to as the mother of the nation. Today, however, she ended the fight, giving up the ghost after a long illness for which she had been in and out of hospital since the start of the year.

Born in Bizana in the Eastern Cape in 1936‚ Winnie moved to Johannesburg to study social work after matriculating. She met lawyer and anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela in 1957 and they were married a year later, having two children together.

However‚ her marriage life with Mandela was short-lived‚ as he was arrested in 1963 and sentenced to life imprisonment for treason, not being released until 1990. During Mandela’s time in prison‚ Winnie was not spared as she was placed under house arrest and at one time banished to Brandfort‚ a town in the Free State.

In 1969‚ Winnie became one of the first detainees under Section Six of the notorious Terrorism Act of 1967. She was detained for 18 months in solitary confinement in a condemned cell at Pretoria Central Prison before being charged under the Suppression of Communism Act of 1950.

After the end of apartheid, Winnie had several issues too, which ultimately led to her divorce from Mandela.  In 1991‚ she was convicted of kidnapping and being an accessory to an assault on Stompie Seipei‚ a young activist who was killed by a member of her bodyguards‚ known as the Mandela United Football Club.

Apparently, Winnie's bodyguards abducted Seipei‚ 14‚ in 1989‚ along with three other youths‚ from the home of Methodist minister Paul Verryn. She was found guilty of the crime but her six-year jail sentence was reduced to a fine and a two-year suspended sentence on appeal.

Her marriage to Mandela, however, began to flounder a few years after his release as a letter she purportedly wrote to her young lover found its way into the newspapers. After the first democratic elections in 1994‚ Winnie became an MP and was appointed deputy minister of arts and culture but was fired by Mandela after an unauthorised trip to Ghana.

She had been an MP ever since‚ despite limited appearances in parliament over the past few years. In 2016‚ she was conferred with the Order of Luthuli in Silver during the National Orders Awards ceremony for her excellent contribution to the fight for the liberation of the people of South Africa.