Home United States USA — Political Zindzi Mandela, Activist in South Africa and Ambassador, Dies at 59

Zindzi Mandela, Activist in South Africa and Ambassador, Dies at 59

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She was ambassador to Denmark after years as a voice against apartheid (sometimes in poetry) alongside her parents, Nelson and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.
Zindziswa Mandela, the youngest daughter of Nelson Mandela and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, who found her own voice as an activist and poet, died in Johannesburg on Monday. She was 59.
Her death, at a hospital, was announced by Cyril Ramaphosa, the president of South Africa. He did not provide a cause of death.
More commonly known by her shortened name, Zindzi, Ms. Mandela was serving as South Africa’s ambassador to Denmark at her death. She was home in Johannesburg awaiting her next posting to Liberia, the president said.
Her death came just days ahead of Nelson Mandela Day, on July 18, an annual celebration held on his birthday. He died in 2013. Her funeral will most likely be limited to 50 people, in line with South Africa’s coronavirus lockdown, officials said.
Born on Dec. 23,1960, in the Soweto township of Johannesburg, Ms. Mandela was 18 months old when her father was arrested and convicted of sabotage and treason. She was 3 when he was sentenced to life imprisonment on Robben Island, off South Africa’s west coast.
At age 12 she wrote to the United Nations, urging it to intervene to protect her mother, herself an anti-apartheid activist, from the South African authorities.
“I am writing this letter to you because if my mother wrote, you might not have [received] it, as most of her letters to her friends don’t reach them,” Ms. Mandela wrote in 1973. “The family and mummy’s friends fear that an atmosphere is being built for something terrible to happen to mummy.”
When, in 1977, the apartheid government banished Ms. Madikizela-Mandela to Brandfort, a town more than 400 kilometers from Johannesburg, Ms. Mandela was sent with her.
She later attended a boarding school in neighboring Swaziland and received a bachelor’s degree in law from the University of Cape Town.

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