05/12/2013 BBC News at Ten

Full Set Nelson Mandela, South Africa's first black president, has

died. He was 95. We will be reporting on

his remarkable life, from freedom fighter to global statesman.

President Zuma has just made this announcement. Our beloved Nelson

Rolihlahla Mandela, the founding president of our democratic nation,

has departed. He had becoming critically frail in recent years and

died at home, surrounded by close family members. He had spent three

decades in jail. An enemy of the apartheid regime and a determined

fighter for democracy. Mr Nelson Mandela, a freeman, taking

his first steps into a new South Africa. His Long Walk To Freedom was

celebrated worldwide. He became one of the towering figures of the past

century. His election as Darth Africa's first black president

brought a spirit of reconciliation after the pain of apartheid. Never,

and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again

experience the oppression of one by another. Good evening. Nelson

Mandela, the father of modern South Africa, has died at the age of 95.

He was a freedom fighter who became president and global statesman,

carrying the hopes and aspirations of his people. Nelson Mandela spent

27 years in prison, a symbol of resistance at home and a figure of

great authority abroad. The announcement of his death was made

in the past few minutes by President Zuma. Fellow South Africans, our

beloved Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, the founding president of our

democratic nation, has departed. He passed on peacefully, in the company

of his family, at around 20.50 on the 5th of December, 2013. He is now

resting. He is now at peace. Our nation has lost its greatest son.

Our people have lost a father. Although we knew that this day would

come, nothing can diminish our sense of a profound and enduring loss. His

tireless struggle for freedom earned him the respect of the world. His

humility, his compassion and his humanity earned him their love. Our

thoughts and prayers are with the Mandela family. To them, we owe a

debt of gratitude. They have sacrificed much and endured much so

that our people could be free. President Jacob Zuma, making the

announcement of the death of former President Mandela refused in its

ago. Let's go live to Johannesburg. Our correspondent is there. It was a

long wait, because lots of people were concerned over the last few

years by his health. He had been very frail in recent months, but the

music that will have an enormous in fact in South Africa and around the

world? That is right. This announcement by Jacob Zuma that you

just saw in Pretoria was preceded by heightened activity around Nelson

Mandela's home in his Johannesburg suburb. We saw family members

arriving and government cars. An hour before the announcement was

made, we saw police vans arriving, setting up a cordon around the house

to keep away whatever Krauts might have gathered. And then, of course,

that announcement. The keywords there from Jacob Zuma were" profound

and enduring loss" . He said South Africa had lost its greatest son,

and the people have lost a father. Even though, as you said, people had

been preparing for this, especially over the last dicks months, when Mr

Mandela went into hospital -- over the last six months, when Mr Mandela

went into hospital and was released later, South Africa had been slowly

preparing itself for this news. It knew it was coming, and yet there

was always this sense that he might somehow pull through. Only on

Tuesday, his eldest daughter was talking about how she could see her

father struggling, as she put it, on his deathbed, but he was still a

courageous fighter and continued to teach them, the family and the

nation, lessons as he lay there. We heard Jacob Zuma saying that in

him, we saw so much of ourselves. That is one of the key things here,

that for South Africans, he represented their better nature,

everything they hoped their nation could become. Jacob Zuma talked

about Mandela was buying vision of building a united and nonracial

South Africa. At the moment, amidst the morning, there will also be a

recognition of the distance that South Africa still has to go to

achieve that vision. In the days and weeks to come, South Africa and

people around the world will want to pay tribute and talk about his

achievements with great formality and the committee as they prepare

for that state funeral. That is right. We heard Jacob Zuma

announcing that from tomorrow, all flags in South Africa would be

lowered to half-mast and that President Mandela would get a state

funeral. We understand that there will be a ceremony of national

mourning at a football stadium five days from now. There will then be a

period of lying in state in Pretoria, followed by an ANC

ceremony at a military airbase. Then he will be flown to his hometown,

where the state funeral will take place, presumably in the company of

both South Africans and world leaders.

We will have lots of reaction for you not just from South Africa, but

from London and around the world. In the meantime, our correspondent

considers the people and places that influenced Nelson Mandela and drove

his struggle against the apartheid regime.

His story is one of the most remarkable of any world leader. Few

in history have endured oppression with such little rancour, or

overcome the oppressor with such little bloodshed. I, Nelson

Rolihlahla Mandela, do hereby swear to be faithful to the Republic of

South Africa. In May 1994, Nelson Mandela, the man a white South

Africa in prison for nearly 30 years, was sworn in as the

country's first black president. Through his dignified and courageous

leadership, the African National Congress had broken the stranglehold

of apartheid and transformed South Africa into a multiracial democracy.

Nelson Mandela was born in 1918 in South Africa's Eastern Cape, the son

of a tribal chief. He qualified as a lawyer and by 1952, he had set up a

legal partnership with the man who was to be a lifelong friend and

ally, Oliver. Together, they campaigned against apartheid, the

exercise in social engineering under which South Africa's white minority

originally crushed the human rights and aspirations of the black

majority. In 1956, and a lot was among 156 political activists to be

charged with high treason. The trial lasted more than four years before

charges were dropped. The Sharpeville massacre in 1964 the ANC

to change strategy. 69 people died when police opened fire on black as

traitors. The ANC was outlawed, Mandela went underground and

peaceful resistance became a thing of the past. Many feel that it is

useless and futile for us to continue talking peace and

nonviolence against a government whose reply is only savage attacks

on an unarmed and defenceless people. Mandela undertook a campaign

of sabotage against the state. He was eventually arrested and charged

with conspiracy to overthrow the government. At his trial, he made a

three-hour speech from the dog. A tape of it was discovered later.

This, his final plea for freedom and democracy for all South Africans,

was to echo down 27 years he was to remain a political prisoner.

Sentenced to life imprisonment, he was sent to Robben Island, a top

security prison in Cape Town's table Bay. Photographs of Mandela were

banned from publication. To quote him was an offence. But

astonishingly, he was not embittered by his long imprisonment. I soon

grasped the fact that we are not conducting a struggle against white

domination. In the course of that struggle, we can form friendships

with people from the other side. Outside, time was running out for

apartheid. With the ANC leadership in jail, even the children of Soweto

were now helping sustain the revolution. The hardline government

of the W Botha tried to crush the uprising, but gradually, more

liberal white people began to realise that Mandela was the

solution, not the problem. An international campaign was begun for

the release of Nelson Mandela as around the world, governments

imposed sanctions on South Africa. In 1990, a courageous white leader,

President FW de Klerk, announced that the ANC would be an banned. --

un-band. Mr Mandela is taking his first steps into a new South Africa.

That seven three, after 27 years of imprisonment, Nelson Mandela walked

to freedom with his then wife at his side. Worldwide pressure had borne

fruit, but hope soon turned to despair. Township riots left blacks

fighting blacks. Mandela repeatedly appealed for peace. Take your guns,

your knives and throw them into the sea. In 1994, Mandela cast his vote

in South Africa's first multiracial elections. Millions enjoyed their

first taste of democracy. The result was a landslide for the ANC. Nelson

Mandela was president of a new South Africa. Never, never and never again

shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression

of one by another. Three years later Nelson Mandela gave up the

presidency of the African National Congress in favour of the

Vice-President, can I Mbeki, who succeeded him as head of state.

Mandela was feted throughout the world as here in London. But there

had been personal sadness. His long-time marriage to Winnie, once

known as the mother of the nation, had ended. In 1998 at the age of 80

he married Graca Machel, the widow of the late President of Mozambique.

It was a marriage which brought him personal happiness and helped him to

enjoy some of the family life which his long imprisonment had denied

him. On the eve of the new millennium Nelson Mandela had

revisited the cell on Robben Island where he had spent nearly 20 of the

27 years he was imprisoned. He lit a candle to symbolise reconciliation.

It was passed to an African child to represent that Continent's hope for

the future, a hope inspired by the life and ideals of one of the truly

great leaders of our time, Nelson Mandela.

Let me show you what's happening in Johannesburg. This is the scene at

the home of the Mandela family. The crowd was gathering earlier, because

they were sensing that something was about to happen. The crowd you

gathering in number and strength. Among them is our southern Africa

correspondent, who is on the phone. I'm hoping Milton can hear me. Give

me a sense of the news there and the impact of that news. I'm standing

outside Nelson Mandela's house here in Houghton in the leafy suburb of

Houghton in Johannesburg. There are lots of people here who are just

coming in dribs and drabs, black and white. People are shocked, even

though he had known that Mr Mandela was ill for a long time. The

announcement by President Zuma tonight has gone a long way to shock

them and to bring them the reality that, finally, a day that South

Africans had feared had come had finally arrived. There is a huge

media contingent here. Lots of cameras, local and international.

The crowd is gathering. The police have in the last hour put up a

cordon to try to control the crowds on the corner of 12th Avenue and 4th

Street here in Houghton. We heard the President earlier saying the

nation had lost its greatest son, our people have lost a father. He

called him the great son and the father of modern South Africa. Just

tell us a little bit about how the nation now will receive this news

and how important it is in the days and weeks ahead to recognise his

contribution properly and fully and with deep dignity. That's very

important. I think President Jacob Zuma encapsulated the feelings of

the nation when he said we've lost one of our greatest sons. I think

that that is exactly how the nation will feel here in South Africa. .

Remember Mr Mandela liberated millions of black South Africans

from racial oppression. But he also liberated the oppressors themselves

when he walked out of prison and said, let's bygone be bygones.

That's how the nation will remember him as they prepare for his funeral.

Milton, for now, thank you. We are expecting President Obama to

make a statement in a short while. We'll bring that to you straight

away. David Cameron is leading the tributes tonight, saying that a

great light has gone out in the world. Nick Robinson our political

editor is at Westminster. Nick, I just gave a brief summary there of

what the Prime Minister's been saying. Tell us more. I can think of

no other figure that's had greater influence on Britain. No other world

figure has more stirred and moved and inspired the current number of

leaders. He said Nelson Mandela was a hero of time. He went on to say he

had asked the flag to be flown at half-mast at Number ten. Mr Cameron

met Nelson Mandela when he was Leader of the Opposition. It was a

poignant meeting because David Cameron had apologised for the way

his own party, the Conservative Party, had handled apartheid. Mrs

Thatcher had talked about using the carrot rather than the stick. In a

very, very different time, the ANC were then suspected by many on the

right of having associations with the Soviet Union, in some way of

being the enemy of the West. But Mr Cameron embrace Mr Mandela and met

him again, and has photographs of Nelson Mandela in his flat in

Downing Street. Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, very close to many

members of the African National Congress. Including some who stood

trial with Nelson Mandela, which led to imprisonment for more than a

quarter of a century. It wasn't until 2007 that Ed Miliband met

Mandela. It was at the unveiling of a statue that stands in Parliament

Square. He too I think will be very affected. Nick Clegg I'm told never

got to meet Mr Mandela but like many of his age went to the Free Mandela

Concert at Wembley, which was part of the great campaign that stirred

so many in Britain to try to get Mandela released. There was

controversy about how to handle apartheid while in prison, but after

he was out Mandela was embraced by all and he was forgiving and was a

frequent visitor to this country. There'll be many people I'm sure who

are remembering where they were when he was released, when he became

President, when he made one of those frequent visits. I was one of those

lucky enough to meet him. All I've spoken to talk of the same thing:

Quiet dignity and enormous strength of character.

Nick, you you rightly mentioned the impact here in the UK. Many people

will be mourning his death. It's the impossible to think of any other

world statesman whose death would have this kind of, would deliver

this kind of blow, if you like, to millions of people around the world.

That's right, because he became a symbol of something. For so many he

became a symbol of one man's strength, the power to endure

against imprisonment, against terrible injustice, and also the

strej of character -- strength of character once out of prison not

then to be embittered, not then to turn on those who had imprisoned

him, not then to search out for those he might regard as having been

previously his or the ANC's enemies. . He seemed capable not just only of

embracing people in his country but people throughout the world,

whatever their view had been. As such he became for politicians as

well as ordinary people a symbol of that strength of personality and the

ability to overcome bitterness and terrible injustice. Nick, for now,

thank you. Let's go live to Washington to our

North American editor. We are expecting a statement from President

Obama quite soon? He'll be making a statement very shortly indeed. I

think it will be a pretty emotional moment. Nelson Mandela is the

closest the world has to a secular saint. He has a particular meaning

in this country, which has had its own struggle against legally imposed

racism. And already the tributes have started coming from across the

political spectrum. George W Bush said he and his wife join the people

of South Africa in paying tribute. President Mandela bore his buried

beens with dignity and grace and the world is better off because of his

example, he says. The great man will be missed but his contributions will

live forever. George Bush's father, George HW Bush, says he mourns the

passing of one of the greatest believers in freedom we've had the

privilege to know. He talks of his moral courage, which changed the

course of history. I think we'll see a lot more tributes like that. Let's

talk about the reaction, likely reaction across the United States.

Nick Robinson earlier touched on the fact this is a man whose reputation

has changed over the past 40 or 50 years. What take would you have on

that in America? I think that's right. This country knows all about

racism, knows all about history, so I think he is especially celebrated

here because of that. As Nick said, it is an important point that it is

not just what he stood for, what he fought for. It is when he got out of

prison. The sense that he could forgive, the sense that he could

come to an accommodation with the people who had been his poem's

oppressors. That is very important in this country. It is something

that President Obama has already referred to in June of this year. He

was in South Africa. He visited the cell on Robben Island where Nelson

Mandela was held prisoner. He wrote in the book there that he was

humbled to stand where men of such courage had faced down injustice. He

went on to write, no shackles or cells can match the strength of the

human spirit. Only last month at the White House, President Obama hosted

a reception to show the film The Walk To Freedom about Nelson

Mandela. He said then that truth and justice will win out. Something that

President Obama is always very keen to stress, and stress in the terms

of this country's own civil rights movement. That he often uses the

quote about the moral ark of the universe bends slowly but bends

towards freedom. I think he will put Nelson Mandela in that context when

he makes his own comments, which we are expecting very soon indeed. . He

should have been up at the White House five minutes ago but we are

expecting him shortly. Mark, we'll be right back when that happens.

Thank you. When Mr Mandela was jailed in 1962

the authorities hoped to undermine his authority and to destroy his

ambition to end the apartheid system. And bring about a democratic

transformation. He once said the prison years had helped to shape

him. As George Alagiah experience, the prison experience turned him

into a strong and unyield opponent. It has been a lepar colony and

military base but most famously the place where Nelson Mandela was

jailed for 25 years. . The prisoner who became a President went back to

the bleak island and to the cell where his only view of the world was

through steel bars. One of the things that was difficult to

comprehend was that we spent such a long time here. He was back at the

lime quarry where all political prisoners were forced into hard

labour, a back-breaking task designed to crush their spirits. But

far from it. Robben Island became a kind of finishing school for

activists, with Nelson Mandela himself sometimes giving the

lessons. The a visibly frail Nelson Mandela returned to the island in

retirement and remembered how he once turned the tablesen a warder

who threatened him. I said, you dare touch me I will take you to the

highest court in the land, and by the time I finished with you, you

will be as poor as a church mouse. He then stopped. The courtyard, the

cells, the quarry, the backdrop against which the prisoners fought

to preserve their humanity. Ahmed was there with Nelson Mandela. Our

general approach was that we are not going to do anything that impinges

on our dignity. Dozens of freedom fighters were banished to Robben

Island but Nelson Mandela's authority was there to see. You

could tell that Nelson Mandela was the leader of the group. When he

spoke to his colleagues, they would stand still or work or whatever. In

other words he would lead by example.

In the divided nation outside, a new generation was taking to the

streets. The leader of the Soweto uprising in 1976 were angry and

impatient with the old guard. But even they would eventually bow to Mr

Mandela's moral authority. Cyril ram pose za says if anything

imprisonment had raised his profile. But imprisoning him they gave him a

life that was much larger than life itself. They actually made him the

hero of our struggle. They created a martyr. Created an icon. Around whom

everybody rallied. The man who emergeded from prison did not

disappoint. And as he once said to me, prison had taught him to think

through his brain, not his blonde. The one-time firebrand was ready to

reconcile old enemies. Let's carry on with our tributes and

underline what we are reporting tonight. If you are just joining us

here on BBC News we are reporting from South Africa the death of

former President Mandela, who was 95.He had of course been ill for

quite a long time. In the past three months increasingly frail,

discharged from hospital in September, his third visit to

hospital this year. The news announced by President Zuma just a

few minutes ago that former President Mandela has passed away.

With me two people with very interesting stories to share with us

about their experiences in South Africa. James Robbins, who was there

for the BBC back in the early 1990s when Mr Mandela was released, and

our South African correspondent. What are your memories of that day,

you must have been very young. I was ten years old of when Nelson Mandela

walked out of the prison when he was holding hands with his former wife,

Winnie Madikezela Mandela. I grew up in a family where it has always been

instilled in us the importance of why people like Nelson Mandela

fought and liberated South Africa. I had been be, it was a Sunday and I

had been sent to the shops on that day. When I came back I found my

mother staring at the TV screen and she was crying. I said to her, but

why are you crying? ? What's wrong? For a good 15 or 20 seconds she did

not answer me. She held me and shook me and said to me, this is the day

you will never forget for the rest of your life. You are now free. That

to me... I'm constantly reminded of that, each time I see the beauty of

South Africa, and all its flaws, Nelson Mandela to a lot of South

Africans stands for peace. He stands for reconciliation when a lot of

black people were calling for revenge when he was released. He was

the one who preached peace. He said in one of his speeches, I studied

the Afrikaner for all the 27 years that I was in prison. I am going to

beat them at their own game. I am preaching forgiveness. And that is

how you defeat the enemy. That is what he kept on saying.

Given that deep respect and that deep admiration, what were your

feelings when you heard the news tonight? For a long time South

Africans have always known, and the world, we've always known that

Mandela was very ill. He was 95 years old. We've always been told by

family, by members of the presidency and Government that he was stable,

but critical. But all we knew a was that he was frail. A lot of people

have been expecting this news for as long as Nelson Mandela had been

released from prison. But this day now that it has happened, it is

happening in South Africa, it has gone after midnight right now. A lot

of people will not have heard what's happened when they wake up tomorrow

morning, but we are likely to see people gather in every bit of open

space in South Africa where they will be mourning their hero. Their

father. Mandela is dad. That is what we call him in South Africa. It

means father. He has been a father to the nation. He is not a saint but

he has been good for the reconciliation process of South

Africa. Let me bring viewers the response of President Obama. At his

trial in 1964, Nelson Mandela closed his statement from the dog, saying"

I have fought against white domination. I have fought against

black domination. I cherished the ideal of a democratic and free

society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal

opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve.

But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die. Nelson

Mandela lived for that ideal, and he made it real. He achieved more than

could be expected of any man. And today, he has gone home. We have

lost one of our most influential, courageous and profoundly good human

beings that any of us will share time with on this earth. He no

longer belongs to us. He belongs to the ages. Through his fist knitting

and unbending will to sacrifice his own freedom above others -- his

fierce dignity, Madiba moved all of us. His journey from a prisoner to a

president embodied the promise that human beings and countries can

change for the better. His commitment to transfer power and

reconcile with those who jailed him set an example that all humanity

should aspire to, whether in the lives of nations or our own personal

lives. And the fact that he did it all with grace and good humour and

an ability to acknowledge his own imperfections only makes the man

that much more remarkable. As he once said, "I am not a St, unless

you think of a St as a sinner who keeps trying". President Obama,

speaking at the White House a few minutes ago, with his moving

tribute, having heard the news that Nelson Mandela has died. With me now

are James Robbins, who spent much time reporting from South Africa.

What are your memories of that time? My strongest memory is the privilege

of being in Cape Town on that Sunday in February, 1990, when Nelson

Mandela walked out of business. It was the most important moment in my

journalistic career. You have to remember, this was a man whose image

was banned in South Africa. It was not lawful to have an image of

Nelson Mandela. People were sent to prison for having his photograph on

a coffee mug. He had been suppressed utterly and become something of a

myth, but he came out the man. He made that walk to Freedom. The very

next day, I remember sitting in Archbishop Desmond Tutu's Darden at

the first conference the newly released Nelson Mandela gave Mo and

I asked him, what surprised you most as you made that walk towards the

prison gates? He said it was the number of white people who had come

among the huge black crowd. That was a deliberately reconciling statement

already, at that very first instant. He was being elliptical and -- being

political and holding out a hand to the minority who he knew he had to

embrace. That was an extraordinary thing to hear from a man who had

lost 27 years of his life. He had been in prison when his first son

had died and suffered so much deprivation, and yet he was

radiating forgiveness from the moment he came out of prison. That

is my abiding memory. He was, in the proper sense of this word, a unique

figure. He was. He was surely the only truly global hero of our age.

It was his utter consistency and his committee and his forgiveness that

marks him out -- his committee. He inspired a whole nation. He

transcended the white regime that had pressed him for so long. They

wanted to negotiate with him, and he said "I cannot negotiate unless I am

a free man" . They kept putting pressure on him to renounce violence

while he was still in his prison cell. What did he say? "I cannot

negotiate as long as I remain in prison and I will not abandon the

principle of one man, one vote". They were terrified of what might

happen. They had no cause to be terrified, because he presided over

an extraordinary multiracial democracy. Whatever the problems of

South Africa now, let's not centuries in which they had been

inferior citizens in their own land. James watched them queue in

their millions to take heart in the democratic process. He has been back

to find out how that day changed people's lives.

South African families, out enjoying themselves. You might not think

there is anything unusual about that, but to me, who reported from

South Africa at the height of apartheid in the 1980s, this is

extraordinary. This was then a white only suburb. I was reporting on the

struggle against apartheid and the regime's extraordinarily brutal

response to any opposition. In the years since then and since Nelson

Mandela's release, I have been back several times, talking to ordinary

South Africans, black and white, about the immense difference Nelson

Mandela made their lives. These are some of their stories. Antoinette

Pietersen is still coming to terms with her terrible loss as a

schoolgirl in the 1970s. Look at her screaming grief. It is June 1976,

and her 13-year-old brother Hector has just in shock and killed the

police, first victim of the Soweto uprising. This museum of up

apartheid in Soweto has been named in Hector Peterson's honour.

Schoolchildren learn their divided history here. For several years,

Hector's sister Antoinette chose to be one of the guides, to confront

her own past every day and her grief. After years, trying to bury

it, failing to face it, she says Nelson Mandela inspired her to

change. I never thought I would talk about what happened. Every time I

spoke about it, I became traumatised and confused. But Mandela went to

prison for 27 years and kept going. Why can't I do the same? Next, the

story of Herman Daly. I met him in 2004. In the Cape wine lands, the

mayor of Wellington is showing some of the riches of South Africa to the

Japanese ambassador, drumming up business for the nonracial rainbow

nation which Nelson Mandela did so much to create. Under apartheid,

Herman, then classified as Cape coloured, could never have been

mayor of a wealthy town ruled by the white minority. It is the values of

the man, Nelson Mandela. To have been incarcerated all those years

and come out and in his very first speech said to let bygones be

bygones, no South African who was at the time very influenced by the then

government could have leapt these were the words of somebody was

incarcerated for so long. Now meet Chris, another prisoner of

apartheid. This is the Valley of grace, further east in the Cape. In

1738, it was the first Christian missions nation in South Africa.

More recently, this is a community which resisted apartheid, causing

Nelson Mandela to name his Cape Town home after the village. Chris was

pastor of the church here. He was imprisoned in the 1970s for daring

to oppose white supremacy. 69 days in solitary confinement almost

killed him. Nelson Mandela's example kept him going. I got the feeling I

would never come out alive. Sitting there with my thoughts, I thought, I

wonder what Nelson Mandela was doing at that time, having been there for

so many years, separated from his family. How could he endure such

torture for so many years 's here I sat for only a few month, and yet it

was so hard. It was practically unbearable. And that gave me

strength. Hedwig is our last witness to Nelson Mandela's greatness.

Hedwig is a schoolteacher who used to believe Nelson Mandela was a

terrorist to be feared, not admired. Her pupils were exclusively white

until the mid-1990s. Now she rejoices in the change to

multiracial education. But back then, she was scared when Nelson

Mandela was freed from prison. Was it going to be safe for white South

African? Will we be able to move round the way we used to? Are we

going to be thrown into jail because we are white? He started talking and

reassured people that there will never be a thing like apartheid in

South Africa. It set our minds at rest. The stories of just a handful

of South Africans who lived through the worst of times. There are

thousands of South Africans with similar stories to tell. It helps

explain why, for them, Nelson Mandela was not only a hero, but a

giant of his age. To see his legacy, whatever the problems that still

confront South Africa, to see the new, free South Africa, you just

have to look around. We will have more reaction in a

short while and talk more about President Obama. Bill Gates has paid

tribute, and the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon.

James, your impressions when you went back, clearly, people want to

talk and pay tribute and recognise what happened to them on that day

which changed millions of lives? That is absolutely right. Every

South African, regardless of their political view, was touched by that

moment. Of course, there were some on the far right in South Africa who

were appalled and felt betrayed by their leaders that the hard line

that had been taken since 1948 had been abandoned. They were

frightened. The schoolteacher their echo that. She was not from the far

right, but she was nervous because white South Africa had utterly

demonised Nelson Mandela and the entire ANC, all those who stood

behind him. It was a dangerous moment. All the years immediately

after his release were dangerous moments. These were tough

negotiations which Nelson Mandela had to lead to persuade all South

Africans that actually, they could feel safe in the hands of an ANC

government which was eventually elected. It is impossible to

exaggerate the extent to which he had to have moral political stature.

Everybody around him in the ANC acknowledged that he was head and

shoulders above them. There were rivalries within the ANC, but not

about him. You were saying also about your memories of the day when

he was released. I am wondering about the significance of that

election, when he became the first president of South Africa. What was

the impact of that day? When all of this was happening I was too young,

too young to even vote in 1994 when millions of South Africans were

bussed in at a school that was opposite our house where my mother

and I lived. A lot of people were wearing ANC colours, shouting, "Viva

Mandela." And talking about not just Nelson Mandela but the likes of ol

have Tambo, Sisull - -- Sisulu. There was a lot of nervousness. As

much as people were shouting and happy, there was a lot of police

presence there. People were worried about what was going to happen. What

are we expecting for the next day? And as you rightly say, it is not

everyone in South Africa who was happy about the release of Nelson

Mandela from prison, but things over the years seem to have changed,

because of this reconciliation and forgiveness that Nelson Mandela kept

preaching. Each time that Nelson Mandela is sick and is hospitalised

or was sick and hospitalised, a lot of South Africans by the millions

would be virtually in that waiting room along with the family. But it

was now white people saying, please don't let him die, because we don't

know what future is out there for us white South Africans. Because there

is still a belief by some white South Africans that when Mandela

goes, which is what we've seen here, that his long walk to freedom has

ended. What is to happen to them? That is the question that a lot of

people are still asking. Thank you very much. I mentioned that the UN

Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has been paying tribute. He called

Nelson Mandela a giant of jus is. Bill Gates said they were inspired

when they met President Mandela a number of times, saying he was a

tireless fighter in pursuit of equality and justice for all people.

Another tribute this evening in London at the film premiere of

Mandela. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were there. This is what

they had to say. Extremely sad and tragic news, the we are reminded

what an extraordinary and inspiring man Nelson Mandela was. My thoughts

and prayers are with his family right now. A tribute from the Duke

of Cambridge earlier tonight. We saw President Obama earlier talking

about President Mandela's contribution. Mark Mardell is in

Washington for us with his thoughts on what the President said, what did

you make of it? It thought it was interesting on a number of levels.

President Obama spoke about his own first political involvement being in

the antiapartheid movement. This is a theme we'll see over the coming

days, just as doubtless people in South Africa took inspiration from

the civil rights movement in the United States, so people in the

civil rights movement looked towards South Africa and felt a pride in

seeing a black President in place. It is America's first black

President who paid tribute tonight to the fierce dignity, as he called

it, of Nelson Mandela. He took a great lesson from that. He said that

Nelson Mandela no longer belongs to us but to the ages. He said there

was a lesson not just for politics but for people in their own personal

lives. That decisions should be guided not by hate but by love. He

went on to echo a quote from Martin Luther King which in itself echoes a

quote from a white antislavery campaigner. He said he took history

in his hands and bent the moral arc of the universe towards justice.

We've been reporting the death of former President Mandela in South

Africa at the age of 95. He had been increasingly frail in recent months.

Lots of concern about his health oh the past two or 3 years. But the

news was announced by President Zuma about 45 minutes ago that the former

President has passed away. At this point some of our viewers in the UK

are leaving us briefly for the news and weather where you are. Our

coverage of the news of the death of Nelson Mandela continues on BBC News

Channel and BBC World