South Africa honors Mandela on first anniversary of death

PRETORIA, South Africa, Dec. 5 (UPI) -- South Africa noted the first anniversary of the death of former President Nelson Mandela Friday with tributes and consideration of his legacy.

His widow, Graca Michael, began the homages with a wreath-laying ceremony at a statue of Mandela in Pretoria. Mandela, 95, died Dec. 5, 2013, touching off a global appreciation of his work to combat apartheid in his country, and his achievement as South Africa's first black president.

"Madiba's legacy covers everyone in the country, in Africa and in the world," she said, using Mandela's tribal name. "When he left he said, 'I leave you in peace and I want you to live in peace.'"

South Africa remains a country with racial issues, a government often accused of corruption and inability to provide basic services to its citizens, and one of the world's widest gaps between rich and poor.

"Our obligation to Madiba is to continue to build the society he envisaged, to follow his example," said Archbishop Desmond Tutu Friday, who, like Mandela, is a South African luminary and Nobel Peace Prize winner.

The anniversary will be marked by an all-star cricket match and a timed blast, across the country, of vuvuzelas, the horn-like musical instrument that South Africa's soccer crowds made internationally famous.

Missing from the honors Friday was South African President Jacob Zuma, who is in China. Zuma, booed at a Mandela memorial last year, praised China in a speech before a university audience Friday in Beijing, drawing a parallel with African countries.

"The emergence of China as a power among others gives or offers an opportunity to African countries to be able to free themselves from the shackles that are really colonially designed. (With) Europe in particular, you are regarded as either a former subject or a second- and third-class kind of a person. The relationship between China and African countries, particularly South Africa, is different."