Thousands celebrate anniversary of Mandela's walk to freedom

Thousands gathered for commemorations near Cape Town yesterday at what was known in 1990 as Victor Verster, the last prison where Mr Mandela was held.

The crowds milled around a 10ft bronze statue erected at the prison in 2008 depicting Mr Mandela's first steps as a free man. Exactly 20 years before, Mandela emerged from Victor Verster on foot, hand-in-hand with his then-wife Winnie, fist raised, smiling but resolute.

"We knew that his freedom meant that our freedom had also arrived," Cyril Ramaphosa, a leader in Mr Mandela's African National Congress who headed a welcome committee for Mandela in 1990, told the crowd at the prison yesterday.

Earlier, Mr Ramaphosa and other ANC leaders had approached the gates of the prison to re-enact Mr Mandela's 1990 walk. Arms linked they stepped through, shouting: "Viva Mandela!"

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, divorced from Mr Mandela in 1996, had been expected to join the re-enactment but did not. She told reporters she would have found it too painful.

Four years after Mr Mandela's release, South Africans held their first all-race elections, making Mr Mandela their first black president. He stepped down after one five-year term, helping to entrench democracy in South Africa in contrast to elsewhere on the continent where

politicians hung on to power through fraud and violence.

Mr Mandela also is beloved for championing racial reconciliation, ensuring a peaceful transition that spared South Africa the chaos and destruction of anti-colonial wars elsewhere in Africa.

His ANC party has reduced the number of people living in poverty but needs remain great, and impatience has grown along with a gap between the poor and the rich – among them black entrepreneurs.

Mvuso Mbali, 37, was in the crowd yesterday and said he was also at the prison 20 years ago.

"And I still remember vividly what happened," he said. "Today we are reinventing our freedom, and uniting our people to follow the values of Mandela."

Mr Mandela marked the anniversary of his release at home last week, reminiscing with fellow veterans of the anti-apartheid struggle for the camera's of his daughter Zindzi's production company, which was preparing a documentary called Conversations About That Day.

Mr Mandela, who will be 92 in July, has largely retired from public life.