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In South Africa, the generation that brought down apartheid is slowly dying out. This Friday, January 13, it is Frene Ginwala who died. This militant of the African National Congress (ANC) was the president of the first democratically elected National Assembly in 1994, after the end of the segregationist regime. The Nelson-Mandela Foundation hailed a “ pillar of the anti-apartheid struggle ».
« Today we mourn the death of a great patriot said Cyril Ramaphosa in the statement announcing the death of Frene Ginwala at the age of 90. ” We have lost another great figure among a particular generation of leaders to whom we owe our freedom added the South African president.
Joined the armed wing of the ANC
Frene Ginwala was born in 1932 in Johannesburg into a relatively well-off Indian immigrant family, which allowed her to study law in Great Britain. On her return to the country, in the mid-1950s, she was an activist in the ANC and joined its armed wing. She then left for Mozambique, where she organized the exfiltration of members of the African National Congress.
Figure internationale
In the 1970s, she became an international figure in the anti-apartheid movement, denouncing the systematic violations of human rights at conferences; she also pursues a career as a journalist. In 1994, the first post-apartheid assembly elected her to the post of speakershe will occupy the presidency of the lower house for ten years, before retiring from active political life to direct the University of KwaZulu-Natal, in Durban.
►Also read : South Africa: death of Jessie Duarte, pillar of the ANC (July 17, 2022)