Obama Will Not Meet With Critically Ill Mandela

President Barack Obama plans to visit privately Saturday with relatives of former South African President Nelson Mandela, but doesn't intend to see the critically ill anti-apartheid activist he has called a "personal hero."

The White House did not disclose any details for Obama's plans to meet the family in a brief statement issued upon Obama's first morning in South Africa during a weeklong tour of the continent. The statement simply said that Obama and his wife would offer their thoughts and prayers at the family's difficult time.

"Out of deference to Nelson Mandela's peace and comfort and the family's wishes, they will not be visiting the hospital," the statement said.

Obama told reporters on the flight to South Africa Friday that he was grateful that he, his wife and daughters had a chance to meet Mandela previously. Obama hangs his photo of the introduction he had to Mandela in 2005 in his personal office at the White House — their only meeting, when Obama was a senator.

"I don't need a photo op," Obama said. "The last thing I want to do is to be in any way obtrusive at a time when the family is concerned about Nelson Mandela's condition."

Obama will be just a couple miles from the hospital where 94-year-old Mandela has been for three weeks after being admitted with a lung infection. The U.S. president has a bilateral meeting and news conference with President Jacob Zuma at the Union Buildings, where Mandela was inaugurated as the country's first black president in 1994 after 27 years behind bars under racist rule.

Obama has said the imprisoned activist's willingness to risk his life for the cause of equal rights helped inspire his own political activism. Obama said his message during the visit will draw on the lessons of Mandela's life, with a message that "Africa's rise will continue" if its people are unified instead of divided by tribe, race or religion.

"I think the main message we'll want to deliver if not directly to him but to his family is simply a profound gratitude for his leadership all these years and that the thoughts and prayers of the American people are with him and his family and his country," Obama said on his flight into the country.

Obama also is paying tribute to the fight against apartheid by visiting the Soweto area Saturday afternoon for a town hall with students at the University of Johannesburg. At least 176 young people were killed in Soweto township 27 years ago this month during a youth protest against the apartheid regime's ban against teaching local Bantu languages. The Soweto Uprising catalyzed international support against apartheid, and June is now recognized as Youth Month in South Africa.

The university plans to bestow an honorary law degree on the U.S. president, while protesters are planning demonstrations against U.S. policy on issues including the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the war in Afghanistan and global warming. Hundreds marched to the U.S. Embassy on Friday, carrying signs that read: "No, You Can't Obama," a message inspired by Obama's "yes, we can" campaign slogan.

Obama, the son of an African man, has been trying to inspire the continent's youth to become civically active and part of a new democratically minded generation. Obama hosted young leaders from more than 40 African countries at the White House in 2010 and challenged them to bring change to their countries by standing up for freedom, openness and peaceful disagreement.

Obama wraps up his South Africa stay Sunday, when he plans to give a sweeping speech on U.S.-Africa policy at the University of Cape Town and take his family to Robben Island to tour the prison where Mandela spent 18 years.

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Mandela Is 'Inspiration To The World,' Obama Says

Friday in Pretoria, South Africa, people gathered outside a hospital to pray for former President Nelson Mandela. He remains in critical condition with a lung infection.

Hailing Nelson Mandela's "moral courage," President Obama on Saturday paid tribute to the anti-apartheid icon and former South African president, who remains hospitalized in critical condition. Doctors have been treating him for a lung infection for the past three weeks.

Speaking in Pretoria at a joint news conference with South African President Jacob Zuma, the American leader said "Madiba" (Mandela's clan name, by which he is affectionately known in South Africa) and South Africa's transition to a "free and democratic nation" have been "a personal inspiration to me ... [and] an inspiration to the world."

Mandela, whose 95th birthday is July 18, has been hospitalized since June 8. In his welcome to Obama on Saturday, Zuma said South Africans "continue to pray for Madiba's good health and well-being." Zuma's office has not updated its information about Mandela's health since Thursday, when it reported that he had improved somewhat but remained in critical condition.

Obama is to meet with Mandela's family privately during his visit to Pretoria, but will not be going to the hospital where Mandela is being treated. According to a statement from the White House, "out of deference to Nelson Mandela's peace and comfort and the family's wishes, [the Obama family] will not be visiting the hospital."

The president told reporters Friday that "the last thing I want to do is to be in any way obtrusive at a time when the family is concerned about Nelson Mandela's condition."

On Sunday, Obama and his family plan to visit Robben Island, where Mandela and others were imprisoned during the long struggle against apartheid.

As we've previously written:

Mandela, NPR's Jason Beaubien reminds us, was born in a country that viewed him as a second-class citizen. But from his childhood as a herd boy, Mandela went on to lead the African National Congress' struggle against the racially oppressive, apartheid regime of South Africa. For his efforts, he spent 27 years behind bars as a political prisoner, finally being released in 1990.
In 1993, Mandela shared the Nobel Peace Prize with former South African President Frederik Willem de Klerk — the nation's last white leader. They were recognized for "their work for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime, and for laying the foundations for a new democratic South Africa."
Then, in 1994, Mandela was elected president in South Africa's first democratic elections. He pledged to serve just one term and left office in 1999.

Outside the hospital where Mandela is being treated, "supporters have been gathering," as South Africa's News 24 reports:

" 'I came to pray for our father Nelson Mandela. We are wishing for our father to be fine,' said Thabo Mahlangu, aged 12, part of a group from a home for abandoned children who travelled to Pretoria.
"A wall of handwritten prayers for Mandela's recovery has become the focal point for South Africans paying tribute to the father of their nation, with singing and dancing by day and candlelight vigils at night.
"One message read: 'If you can fight prison, you can beat this.' "

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South Africa's Mandela 'improving' as Obama flies in

 Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the ex-wife of ailing former South African President Nelson Mandela, addresses journalists in Soweto, June 28, 2013.
PRETORIA/JOHANNESBURG - South Africa's ailing anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela is doing much better in hospital, his ex-wife Winnie said on Friday, as U.S. President Barack Obama arrived for a visit that will pay homage to a man he calls his "personal hero".
The faltering health of the first black president of South Africa, a revered symbol of racial reconciliation, has drawn world attention since the 94-year-old was rushed to hospital with a recurring lung infection nearly three weeks ago.
Earlier this week, the government said Mandela's frail condition had turned critical, but since Thursday President Jacob Zuma has reported that his health is improving.
"I'm not a doctor, but I can say that from what he was a few days ago, there is great improvement," Mandela's ex-wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, told reporters outside Mandela's former home in the Johannesburg township of Soweto.
But, she added, he remained "clinically unwell".
Aboard Air Force One prior to arriving in South Africa, Obama paid tribute to Mandela for the way he led his nation out of apartheid after years of struggle, but said he did not need a "photo op" with the former president.
"Right now, our main concern is with his wellbeing, his comfort, and with the family's wellbeing and comfort," he told reporters before the U.S. presidential aircraft touched down on Friday evening at Waterkloof air force base in Pretoria.
During his weekend trip to Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town, his second stop of a three-nation Africa tour, Obama is scheduled on Sunday to visit Robben Island, where Mandela passed 18 of the 27 years he spent in apartheid prisons.
White House officials have said they will defer to the Mandela family on whether a visit to the hospital to see Madiba, as he is affectionately known, would be appropriate.
LESSONS OF MANDELA
Obama told reporters his message in South Africa would draw from the lessons of Mandela's life.
"If we focus on what Africa as a continent can do together and what these countries can do when they're unified, as opposed to when they're divided by tribe or race or religion, then Africa's rise will continue," he said.
White House officials said Obama would hold a "town hall meeting" on Saturday with youth leaders in Soweto, the Johannesburg township known for 1976 student protests against apartheid.
Obama, in office since 2009, is making his first substantial visit to Africa following a short trip to Ghana at the beginning of his first term.
While well-wishers and journalists crowded outside the hospital in the capital Pretoria where Mandela is being treated, a few blocks away, hundreds of demonstrators protested against Obama's visit, some burning U.S. flags.
Nearly 1,000 trade unionists, Muslim activists and South African Communist Party members marched to the U.S. Embassy shouting slogans denouncing Obama's foreign policy as "arrogant and oppressive".
Muslim activists held prayers in a car park outside the embassy. Leader Imam Sayeed Mohammed told the group: "We hope that Mandela feels better and that Obama can learn from him."
South African critics of Obama have focused in particular on his support for U.S. drone strikes overseas, which they say have killed hundreds of innocent civilians, and his failure to fulfill a pledge to close the U.S. military detention center at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba housing terrorism suspects.
"TWO GREAT MEN"
Protesters said the first African-American president should not try to link himself to the anti-apartheid figure.
"Mandela valued human life ... Mandela would condemn drone attacks and civilian deaths, Mandela cannot be his hero, he cannot be on that list," said Yousha Tayob.
Not far away at the Pretoria heart hospital, some of the people paying tribute to Mandela had words of praise for Obama, who met Mandela in 2005 when he was still a U.S. senator.
Nigerian painter Sanusi Olatunji, 31, had brought portraits of both Mandela and Obama to the wall of the hospital, where flowers, tribute notes and gifts for Madiba, as Mandela is affectionately known, have been piling up.
"These are the two great men of my lifetime," he said.
As Mandela's health has deteriorated this year, the realization has grown among South Africa's 53 million people that the man who forged their multi-racial "Rainbow Nation" from the ashes of apartheid may be nearing his end.
The possibility of his dying has already generated controversy among the extended Mandela clan.
A dispute between two factions over where the family grave should be went to court on Friday when his eldest daughter and more than a dozen other relatives sought an injunction against Mandela's grandson, Mandla.
The state broadcaster SABC said a court had ordered Mandla to return the remains of three of Mandela's children from the village of Mvezo, where the anti-apartheid icon was born and where Mandla is now an influential tribal chief, to their former graves in Qunu, the village 20 km (13 miles) away where Mandela spent most of his childhood.
Mandla, 39, has built a memorial center in Mvezo that many have interpreted as an attempt to ensure Mandela is buried there.

Obama heads to South Africa with Mandela on his mind

DAKAR - U.S. President Barack Obama heads to South Africa on Friday hoping to see ailing icon Nelson Mandela, after wrapping up a visit to Senegal that focused on improving food security and promoting democratic institutions.

Obama is in the middle of a three-country tour of Africa that the White House hopes will compensate for what some view as years of neglect by the administration of America's first black president.

Before departing Dakar, Obama was scheduled to meet with farmers and local entrepreneurs to discuss new technologies that are helping farmers and their families in West Africa, one of the world's poorest and most drought-prone regions.

But it was Mandela, the 94-year-old former South African president who is clinging to life in a Pretoria hospital, who will dominate the president's day even before he arrives in Johannesburg.

Asked on Thursday whether Obama would be able to pay Mandela a visit, the White House said that was up to the family.

"We are going to completely defer to the wishes of the Mandela family and work with the South African government as relates to our visit," deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters in Senegal.

"Whatever the Mandela family deems appropriate, that's what we're focused on doing in terms of our interaction with them."

Obama sees Mandela, also known as Madiba, as a hero. Whether they are able to meet or not, officials said his trip would serve largely as a tribute to the anti-apartheid leader.

"I've had the privilege of meeting Madiba and speaking to him. And he's a personal hero, but I don't think I'm unique in that regard," Obama said on Thursday. "If and when he passes from this place, one thing I think we'll all know is that his legacy is one that will linger on throughout the ages."

The president arrives in South Africa Friday evening and has no public events scheduled. He could go to the hospital then.

Obama is scheduled to visit Robben Island, where Mandela spent years in prison, later during his trip.

On Friday morning, Obama will take part in a "Feed the Future" event on food security. That issue, along with anti-corruption measures and trade opportunities for U.S. companies, are topics the White House wants to highlight on Obama's tour.

Obama, who has been in office since 2009, has only visited Africa once in his presidential tenure: a short trip to Ghana at the beginning of his first term.

While acknowledging that Obama has not spent as much time in Africa as people hoped, the administration is eager to highlight what it has done, in part to end unflattering comparisons to accomplishments of predecessors George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

Food security and public aid are two of the issues the Obama team believes are success stories.

"Africa has seen a steady and consistent increase in our overall resource investment each year that we've been in office," said Raj Shah, head of USAID. "And sustaining that in this political climate has required real trade-offs to be made in other areas, but we've done that."

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Daughter says Mandela 'still there', raps media 'vultures'

PRETORIA - Former South African President Nelson Mandela is still clinging to life, his eldest daughter Makaziwe said on Thursday, but she criticized foreign media "vultures" for violating his privacy as he lay critically ill in hospital.

Makaziwe's outburst came as anxiety increased over the faltering health of the frail 94-year-old anti-apartheid hero, admired across the world as a symbol of resistance against injustice and of racial reconciliation.

Late on Wednesday, President Jacob Zuma's government reported a downturn in Mandela's condition after nearly three weeks of treatment in a Pretoria hospital for a lung infection.

This forced Zuma to cancel his participation in a regional summit in neighboring Mozambique on Thursday.

But Zuma paid a second visit in 24 hours to Mandela on Thursday and was told by his doctors he had improved overnight.

"He is much better today than he was when I saw him last night. The medical team continues to do a sterling job," Zuma said in a statement released by his office. The presidency said Mandela remains "critical but is now stable".

"I won't lie, it doesn't look good," Mandela's daughter Makaziwe told state broadcaster SABC after visiting her father.

"But as I say, if we speak to him, he responds and tries to open his eyes. He's still there".

Accompanied by a group of grandchildren, she angrily criticized the "bad taste" of foreign media she said were intruding on the privacy of her father and his family.

"There's sort of a racist element with many of the foreign media, where they just cross boundaries," she said, after running the gauntlet of the pack of camera crews and reporters gathered outside the hospital.

"It's truly like vultures waiting when the lion has devoured the buffalo, waiting there for the last of the carcass. That's the image we have as a family," Makaziwe added.

Her criticism followed several sharp rebukes from Zuma's spokesman against some foreign media reports that have given alarming details of Mandela's deteriorating condition.

Spokesman Mac Maharaj declined to comment on the latest report by a major U.S. TV news network that South Africa's first black president was on life support. He said this was part of Mandela's confidential relationship with his doctors.

Daughter Makaziwe said: "If people say they really care about Nelson Mandela, then they should respect that. They should respect that there is a part of him that has to be respected."

She compared the massive media attention on Mandela, who has been in and out of hospital in the last few months with a recurring lung infection, with the coverage of the death in April of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

"We don't mind the interest but I just feel it has gone overboard. When Margaret Thatcher was sick in hospital, I didn't see this kind of media frenzy around Margaret Thatcher," she said. "It is only God who knows when the time to go is."

OBAMA SAYS MANDELA "PERSONAL HERO"

Mandela's fourth hospitalization in six months has forced a growing realization among South Africans that the man regarded as the father of their post-apartheid "Rainbow Nation" will not be among them forever.

"Mandela is very old and at that age, life is not good. I just pray that God takes him this time. He must go. He must rest," said Ida Mashego, a 60-year-old office cleaner in Johannesburg's Sandton financial district.

U.S. President Barack Obama, who is due to visit South Africa this weekend, said his thoughts and prayers were with the Mandela family and South Africans.

Speaking in Senegal, his first stop on a three-nation African tour, Obama said Mandela was a "personal hero" of his.

"Even if he passes on, his legacy will linger on," Obama said. He confirmed he still planned to travel to South Africa in the coming days, in response to speculation he might re-schedule his trip because of Mandela's deteriorating health.

Mandela is revered for his lifetime of opposition to the system of race-based apartheid rule imposed by the white minority government that sentenced him to 27 years in jail, more than half of them on the notorious Robben Island.

He is also respected for the way he preached reconciliation after the 1994 transition to multi-racial democracy following three centuries of white domination.

Well-wishers' messages, bouquets and stuffed animals have piled up outside Mandela's Johannesburg home and the wall of the hospital compound where he is being treated in the capital.

South Africans seemed resigned to the prospect of losing their hero, but expressed gratitude for what he had done.

"That great man who is in God's hands now fought so a black woman like me could move into this whites-only area in 1991," teacher Nthabi Chauke, 54, said outside the hospital. "Now I know what freedom feels like. I came here to say thank you."

Mandela stepped down in 1999 after one five-year term in office. Since then he has played little role in public life, dividing his time in retirement between his home in the wealthy Johannesburg suburb of Houghton and Qunu, the village in the impoverished Eastern Cape province where he was born.

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Archbishop Prays For 'Peaceful, Perfect End' For Nelson Mandela

A well wisher walks in front of a wall covered with messages to the ailing former South African president Nelson Mandela in Pretoria on Wednesday.
A well wisher walks in front of a wall covered with messages to the ailing former South African president Nelson Mandela in Pretoria on Wednesday.

Nelson Mandela remains in a South African hospital in critical condition, today.

South African Archbishop Thabo Makgoba visited the hospital to pray with his family on Tuesday. On his Facebook page, Makgoba posted the prayer he said for the 94-year-old anti-apartheid legend and former president. He wrote:

"May your arms of love, stretched wide on the cross for us, now enfold Madiba, and Graça, with compassion, comfort and the conviction that you will never forsake them but that you will grant Madiba eternal healing and relief from pain and suffering.

"And may your blessing rest upon Madiba now and always. Grant him, we pray, a quiet night and a peaceful, perfect, end."

One news channel reports that outside the hospital, the messages left for Mandela have shifted from hopeful to full of resignation.

Reports:

"'You are and will always be a true legend and grandfather to us all,' reads one note tied around the neck of a little white bear. Another, placed with a bunch of proteas, the country's national flower, says 'Tata Mandela you have touched our lives and blessed us in more ways than one. We love you.'

"Many of the messages appear to be written by children, in colored glue and pen, including one which features the hand prints of children still far too young to understand the indelible mark the former president has left on their country.

"The touching and very personal tributes started appearing on the wall on June 8, the day Mandela was admitted to hospital for a recurring lung infection. However, what was hoped to be a short stint has stretched into its 19th day, the longest period of hospitalization ever for a man known not for his physical strength but personal fortitude."

 

Hospitalized Nelson Mandela In Critical Condition

A print of Nelson Mandela and get well messages lay outside the home of the former President Mandela in Johannesburg, South Africa earlier this month.
A print of Nelson Mandela and get well messages lay outside the home of the former President Mandela in Johannesburg, South Africa earlier this month.

Nelson Mandela, the former South African president and anti-apartheid leader, is in critical condition in a hospital in Pretoria where he was admitted two weeks ago with a recurring respiratory infection.

A statement from South African President Jacob Zuma said the 94-year-old Mandela's condition had become critical over the past 24 hours.

"The doctors are doing everything possible to get his condition to improve and are ensuring that Madiba is well-looked after and is comfortable. He is in good hands," said Zuma, referring to Mandela by his clan name.

NPR's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton reports that Zuma has also met with Mandela's wife, Graca Machel, to discuss his health.

Mandela, a Noble Peace Prize laureate, was rushed to the hospital on June 8, but was reportedly stranded for 40 minutes en route after his ambulance broke down.

On Saturday, Zuma's office confirmed that an ambulance that transported Mandela had been disabled. Presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj said Mandela was transferred to another military ambulance for the remainder of the journey between Johannesburg and the Medi-Clinic Heart Hospital in Pretoria.

He did not say how long the trip to the hospital took, but said "all care" was taken to ensure that Mandela's medical condition was not compromised.

Mandela's lung problems date from his long imprisonment at Robben Island near Cape Town, where he spent 27 years for his anti-apartheid activities before being released in 1990.

In 1994, Mandela became South Africa's first black president.