Winnie Mandela

Born Winnifred Madikizela at Bizana, Pondoland, South Africa, September 26, 1936 (some sources say 1934): ex-wife of South African president (May 1994-June 1999) and African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela.

She emerged as a leading opponent of the white minority government during the latter years of her husband's long imprisonment (August 1962-February 1990), but was damaged by what many considered her sometimes sanguinary rhetoric and by subsequent accusations of responsibility for the January 1989 abduction and killing by her bodyguards of 14-year-old ANC activist Stompie Seipei Moketsi.

During the transition from Apartheid racial segregation she appeared to adopt a less conciliatory attitude than her husband toward the previously dominant white community, and their 38-year marriage ended in separation (April 1992) and divorce (March 1996). Appointed deputy minister of arts, culture, science and technology in the first post-Apartheid government (May 1994), she was dismissed eleven months later following allegations of curruption.

She remained popular, however, among many ANC radicals, and in December 1993 and April 1997 she was elected president of the ANC Women's League, though she withdrew her candidacy for ANC deputy president at the movement's December 1997 Mafiking conference after further damaging revelations about the Seipei incident during the sittings of the national Truth and Reconciliation Commission headed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.