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Twenty years ago Nelson Mandela completed the last stage of his long walk to freedom when he was released after 27 years in prison.
Today thousands of fellow South Africans celebrated his release outside Victor Verster jail near Cape Town, and its crucial part in ending apartheid. Some chanted “Viva, Nelson Mandela, Viva”.
“We knew that his freedom meant that our freedom had also arrived,” said Cyril Ramaphosa, a leader in African National Congress who headed Mr Mandela's welcome committee.
Mr Mandela, 91, was too frail to attend the celebrations but is expected in parliament at a state of the nation address by President Jacob Zuma later today.
His then wife Winnie, whose hand he clutched as he marched with his right arm raised in sombre defiance, had been due to lead the march but failed to attend. A spokesman said it would have been “too painful” for her.
Four years after his release, South Africans made Mr Mandela their first black president in their first multi-racial elections. He stepped down after one five-year term, helping to entrench democracy in South Africa.
His release had come suddenly. Sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964 for plotting to overthrow the government by violence, his released followed the legalisation of the ANC a week earlier.
The country's then-President, FW de Klerk, announced on 10 February that Mr Mandela would be released the next day.
“It was all a bit chaotic and I must tell you we were unprepared,” said Mr Ramaphosa. Mvuso Mbali, 37, who was in the crowd today, was at the prison 20 years ago. “Today we are reinventing our freedom, and uniting our people to follow the values of Mandela,” he said.
Nontuntuzelo Faku, who was also there, said: “When Mandela was released we did not know what was going happen.” But she said the past 20 years “makes me realise how far the country has come”.
