Hundreds of people, including President Thabo Mbeki, converged on Qunu in the Eastern Cape on Saturday to support former president Nelson Mandela at the funeral of his son, Makgatho, who died of Aids.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Aids activist Zackie Achmat and businessman Patrice Motsepe were among those who went to bid farewell to Makgatho (54).
Makgatho, a Johannesburg lawyer, died of Aids-related complications last week, and Mandela used the announcement of his death to plead for openness on the disease.
The former president announced his son’s Aids status at a press conference a few hours after his death at a Johannesburg clinic.
”To come out and to say somebody has died because of HIV… people will stop regarding it as something extraordinary, as an illness reserved to people who are going to go to hell and not heaven,” Mandela said.
He looked solemn as he sat next to his wife, Graca, at a podium in front of the casket covered with yellow and white flowers.
Makgato’s son, Mandla, revealed to mourners that his mother, Zondi, had also died of Aids a year earlier.
”… In spite of this, we are not used to death,” said Mandla, who was among the speakers at the funeral service.
Zwelakhe Sisulu, son of Walter Sisulu, blamed his childhood friend’s death on a lack of parental guidance.
He said that both Makgato and himself had grown up at a time when their fathers were either on the run or in prison.
”I am not complaining nor am I blaming anyone,” he said.
Mbeki did not speak at the funeral.
Makgatho was Mandela’s eldest child and only surviving son by his first wife, Evelyn, who died last year.
His only other son, Thembekile, died in a car accident in 1969.
Mandela now has three surviving children: Maki, a daughter from his first marriage, and Zindzi and Zenani, two daughters from his second marriage to Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, from whom he separated in 1992. — Sapa