JOHANNESBURG - President Barack Obama said Friday that he was bearing a message of “profound gratitude” to Nelson Mandela, the stricken former leader of South Africa, and that he would defer to Mandela’s family on whether to visit him.
Obama made the remarks aboard Air Force One as he headed to South Africa, where concerns over Mandela’s health were deepening despite official government assurances that his condition from a serious lung infection had stabilized.
Obama’s plane left for the almost eight-hour flight to Johannesburg from Dakar, Senegal, where Obama met with African farmers and entrepreneurs seeking enhanced food security through new agricultural practices and technology.
Meanwhile, hundreds of protesters marched to the U.S. Embassy in South Africa on Friday in a peaceful protest against Obama’s impending visit. The demonstrators opposed U.S. policy on Cuba, the war in Afghanistan, global warming and other issues. The rally in the capital, Pretoria, was organized by trade unionists and members of the South African Communist Party.
Speaking to reporters traveling with him, Obama said he had no further information on the health of Mandela, the 94-year-old visionary of the successful anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa. Obama said any possibility of a visit by himself, the first lady, Michelle Obama, and their two daughters would rest with the family of Mandela, who has been hospitalized since June 8.
“I don’t need a photo-op, and 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 said, according to a transcript of his remarks released by the White House. “I’ve had the opportunity to meet with him, Michelle and the girls had an opportunity to meet with him. Right now, our main concern is with his well-being, his comfort, and with the family’s well-being and comfort.”
Obama said the main message he intended to deliver to Mandela, “if not directly to him but to his family, is simply our 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.”
As supporters of the governing African National Congress party rallied outside the hospital in Pretoria where Mandela was being treated, concerned relatives, clergy members and senior government officials have been streaming in to see Mandela, South Africa’s former president.
As Mandela remained in critical condition Friday, a family feud over where he should be buried went to the courts, according to South Africa’s national broadcaster.
Mandela’s oldest daughter, Makaziwe, and 15 other family members have pressed a court application to get Mandela’s grandson to return the bodies of three of Mandela’s children to their original graves in the eastern rural village of Qunu, according to the South African Broadcasting Corporation.
The anti-apartheid leader built his retirement home in Qunu and was living there until his repeated hospitalizations, which started at the end of last year. Mandela attended the burial of his son at the family plot in Qunu in 2005, and it was widely expected that the leader would be buried there.
But his grandson, Mandla Mandela, exhumed the bodies of Mandela’s three children and moved them to nearby Mvezo, which is the former president’s birthplace and where the grandson holds authority as chief.
Mandla Mandela acknowledges having reburied the bodies 13 miles away in the Mvezo village, where he plans to create a Mandela shrine, hotel and soccer stadium, according to the South African Press Association.
He has until today to respond to the court filing, reports said.
Information for this article was contributed by Declan Walsh, Rick Lyman, Michael D. Shear, Alan Cowell and Adam Nossiter of The New York Times and by Andrew Meldrum and Wandoo Makurdi of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 7 on 06/29/2013