JOHANNESBURG – Zindzi Mandela, the daughter of South African anti-apartheid leaders Nelson Mandela and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, died at 59.
South African Broadcasting Corporation state television reported that Mandela died in a Johannesburg hospital early Monday morning. The cause of his death has not been announced.
She was South Africa’s ambassador to Denmark since 2015.
Mandelas’s daughter rose to international fame in 1985, when the white minority government offered to release Nelson Mandela from prison if he denounced the violence perpetrated by his movement, the African National Congress, against apartheid, the brutal system of racial discrimination imposed in South Africa. At that time.
Zindzi Mandela read his letter rejecting the offer at a crowded public gathering that aired around the world.
Last year, Mandela sparked controversy by calling for the return of white-owned lands to South Africa’s dispossessed black majority.
“Dear apartheid apologists, your time is up. You will not rule again. We are not afraid of you. Finally #TheLandIsOurs, “he tweeted in June last year.
South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor expressed her shock at Mandela’s death and described her as a heroine.
“Zindzi will not only be remembered as the daughter of our fighting heroes, Tata Nelson and Mama Winnie Mandela, but as a fighting hero in her own right. It served South Africa well, ”said Pandor.
Her husband and four children survive her.
.
