As former South African President,
Nelson Mandela, remained in a critical condition in hospital on Friday,
a family feud over where the 94-year-old former president should be
buried went to the courts.
Mandela’s oldest daughter, Makaziwe,
and 15 other family members have pressed a court application to get
Mandela’s grandson to return the bodies of three of Mandela’s children
to their original graves in the eastern rural village of Qunu,
according to the South African Broadcasting Corporation.
The grandson, Mandla Mandela,
acknowledges having reburied the three bodies 20 kilometers (13 miles)
away in the Mvezo village, where he plans to create a Mandela shrine,
hotel and soccer stadium, according to the South African Press
Association.
Grandson Mandla Mandela has until Saturday to respond to the court filing, reports said.
The anti-apartheid leader built his
retirement home in Qunu and was living there until his repeated
hospitalisations which started at the end of last year. Nelson Mandela
attended the burial of his son at the family plot in Qunu in 2005, and
it was widely expected that the leader himself would be buried there.
But his grandson exhumed the bodies of
Mandela’s three children and moved them to nearby Mvezo, where he holds
authority as chief.
Eldest daughter Makaziwe and other
Mandela family members want the family bodies returned to their
original graves in Qunu, according to the reports.
The family court struggle came as Mandela’s ex-wife said that he had improved in recent days, but remained critical.
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela gave the update on Friday while speaking to journalists outside Mandela’s former home in Soweto.
“I’m not a doctor but I can say that
from what he was a few days ago there is great improvement,” said
Madikizela-Mandela, who is a member of South Africa’s Parliament.
Madikizela-Mandela pleaded with the media to “understand the sensitivities and the feeling of the family.”
His daughter Makaziwe Mandela was among
the family members who arrived at the Pretoria hospital on Friday. The
ministers of health and defense also visited, the South African Press
Association reported.
Outside the Pretoria hospital on
Friday, a man flying a drone-like object with a camera attached was led
away by several policemen, adding to an already heightened atmosphere
where well-wishers continue to gather to pray for Mandela.
Mandela was taken to the hospital on
June 8 to be treated for what the government said was a recurring lung
infection. South Africans have held prayers nationwide, and many have
left flowers and messages of support outside the hospital as well as
his home in Johannesburg.
On Thursday, the office of South
African President Jacob Zuma said Mandela’s health had improved
overnight, and that his condition was critical but stable.
On Friday night, United States
President Barack Obama and his family arrived in South Africa for the
second leg of the US president’s first major trip to the continent.
Hopes that the first black presidents
of their two respective countries might meet have been all but
extinguished because of Mandela’s ill health.
Speaking to journalists on board Air
Force One as he flew from Senegal to Johannesburg, Obama said he didn’t
want to be “obtrusive,” Daily Telegraph of London reports.
“We’ll see what the situation is when
we land. I do not need a photo op,” he said. “Right now, our main
concern is with his well being, his comfort and with the family’s well
being and comfort.”
Mandela’s last wishes were contained in
a Will that the then 78-year-old president made in January 1996. Events
in Qunu in the past week suggest they have not changed.
On Thursday, workmen in lorries and
compactors began hurriedly laying soil for a new road leading to a
10-acre meadow on a slope overlooking Mandela’s pink-walled country
home where his grave is expected to be.
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GOD!! And the VENERABLE MANDELA is not dead yet they are fighting over burial ground--What if he gets well and lives to be 100??
ReplyDeleteMaybe Mandela's will of 1996 named the grandson as chief executor of his will, and he is preparing for what has to happen someday. The media should refrain from poking their collective noses into this affair. It is sordid and unbecoming.
ReplyDelete