Important dates in the life of Winnie Mandela – a flawed anti-apartheid heroine
One of South Africa’s most iconic anti-apartheid heroes, Winnie Mandela passed on Monday aged 81.
The former wife of Nelson Mandela died in a Johannesburg hospital after a long illness.
Winnie’s place in history is forever secured, despite controversial occurrences in the latter part of her life as an activist.
Here are some important dates in the life of the heroine, according to AFP.
– 1936: Winnie was born on September 26 as Nomzamo Winifred Zanyiwe Madikizela in the Eastern Cape province.
– 1955: She becomes the country’s first black social worker in a hospital in Johannesburg’s Soweto township.
– 1958: She marries Nelson Mandela, a lawyer and leading member of the anti-apartheid African National Congress (ANC).
– 1962: Mandela is jailed. Over the next years, Winnie emerges as an influential ANC figure, enduring harassment and stints in prison.
– 1986: In her most controversial speech, she endorses the practice of “necklacing” or burning people by setting alight a tyre around their necks.
– 1990: Nelson Mandela is freed after 27 years in prison. Winnie was there – hand in hand – to welcome him home.
– 1991: Winnie is found guilty and fined for the kidnapping of four Soweto youths and the killing of one by her team of bodyguards known as the “Mandela United Football Club”.
– 1992: She is forced out of all executive positions in the ANC after allegations of corruption and mismanagement.
– 1994: Appointed deputy minister of arts, culture, science and technology in Mandela’s unity government. The next year, she is sacked for insubordination but keeps her position as member of parliament and head of the powerful Women’s League.
– 1996: She officially divorced from Mandela, after four years of separation.
– 1998: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission implicates her in torture, murder and abduction during the struggle against apartheid.
– 2003-2004: Convicted of fraud, with a suspended jail sentence.
– 2009: Manages to secure only the fifth place on the ANC’s electoral list for the 2009 general election.
– 2013: Death of Nelson Mandela.
– April 2 2018: Death of Winnie Mandela.
