By Spy Correspondent
Johannesburg: The Department of International Relations on Monday confirmed the death of South Africa’s ambassador to Denmark Zindziswa and a daughter of late struggle icons Nelson Mandela and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.
“Zindzi will not only be remembered as a daughter of our struggle heroes, Tata Nelson and Mama Winnie Mandela, but as a struggle heroine in her own right. She served South Africa well,” Pandor said in a statement, expressing her condolences to the Mandela family and their loved ones.
The 59-year-old was a political activist and was among those who fought the oppressive apartheid regime.
She first took up her position as the ambassador to Denmark in 2015.
When she was 18 months old, her father was sent to prison. Her mother was also imprisoned often at the time, sometimes for months on end, leaving Zindzi in the care of her elder sibling, Zenani.
In 1977 Madikizela-Mandela was banished to Brandfort, then in the Orange Free State, and Zindzi moved with her, taking her out of her normal life. She then moved to Swaziland, and upon finishing high school, enrolled at the University of Cape Town for a law degree.
She and her sister soon became effective spokespeople for her imprisoned parents.
In 1985, the year she graduated, Zindzi was selected to read her father’s refusal speech after the then President Pieter Willem Botha, offered him conditional release from prison.
The Department of International Relations is expected to release more details surrounding Zindzi Mandela’s death at a later stage.
