Former South African President Nelson Mandela meets with the family of the late Tsietsi Mashinini at the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund office in Houghton-Johannesburg in this June 13 file photo. - REUTERS
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters):
NELSON MANDELA celebrated a quiet 88th birthday with his family yesterday as South Africans wished the anti-apartheid hero many more birthdays to come.
Mandela, who formally retired from public life in 2004, had no public events scheduled.
"I wish him a happy birthday. I wish him comfort, joy and support in his work," Mandela's daughter Zindzi told the SAPA news agency at an event marking the birthday at Mandela's Johannesburg foundation.
She said Mandela's many grandchildren would be giving him a hand-made gift, but declined to say what it was. "If I do it won't be a surprise," she said.
South Africa's media were awash with birthday cheer. Radio call-in shows and newspapers brimmed with goodwill for the man credited with ending apartheid and guiding South Africa to peaceful multi-racial democracy.
WELL WISHES
President Thabo Mbeki, who succeeded Mandela in 1999, issued a statement expressing hopes that the man, affectionately known as "Tata" or grandfather across South Africa, would "live long enough to see the full bloom of our nation as it regenerates itself into a peaceful, prosperous and united people."
Mandela has drastically cut back his public appearances and aides say that while he remains in generally good health, he needs to spend more time resting and with family.
Yesterday also marked Mandela's wedding anniversary to his third wife Graça Machel, whom he married on his 80th birthday in 1998.
The Nobel Peace laureate, who spent 27 years in apartheid jails before becoming South Africa's first black president after historic all-race elections in 1994, now focuses on social causes, particularly Africa's fight against HIV/AIDS.
The epidemic, which infects an estimated one out of nine South Africans, touched Mandela's own life when his only surviving son Makgatho died of AIDS in 2005.
