Helen Suzman, who fought apartheid, dies

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Jan. 1 (UPI) -- Helen Suzman, who fought apartheid as a member of the South African parliament, died Thursday at the age of 91.

Jeffrey Jowell, Suzman's son-in-law, told The New York Times that she died at home in Johannesburg and had been sick for a short time.

Suzman served in parliament from 1953 to 1989, representing a Johannesburg district. She became the longest-serving legislator, but for much of that time she was the only open opponent of apartheid in parliament.

In 1967, she made her first visit to Nelson Mandela at his prison on Robben Island. More than 20 years later, he was released and elected South Africa's first black president.

Suzman said that she first came to hate apartheid as a university student. The wife of a doctor, she lived the comfortable life of well-off white South Africans.

While her opposition to apartheid was unrelenting, she also opposed violent measures and the boycott of South Africa.

"I understand the moral abhorrence, and pleasure it gives you when you demonstrate," she said in New York in 1986. "But I don't see how wrecking the economy of the country will ensure a more stable and just society."