SOUTH AFRICA: South African Nobel Peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu calls for a state funeral for late anti-apartheid stalwart Helen Suzman

Record ID: 455010

  • Title: SOUTH AFRICA: South African Nobel Peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu calls for a state funeral for late anti-apartheid stalwart Helen Suzman
  • Date: 3rd January 2009
  • Summary: CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA (JANUARY 2, 2009) (REUTERS) MAN WALKS IN STREET IN DOWNTOWN CAPE TOWN
  • Embargoed: 18th January 2009 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: South Africa
  • Country: South Africa
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA5PIKTP9E9O5SG0E5XEIAL582N
  • Story Text: Archbishop Desmond Tutu pays tribute to anti-apartheid campaigner Helen Suzman who has died at the age of 91.
    South African Nobel peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu said on Friday (January 2) that anti-apartheid campaigner, Helen Suzman, deserves a state funeral. Helen Suzman, one of south Africa's foremost anti-apartheid campaigners' died on Thursday (January 1) at the age of 91.
    Suzman, the daughter of Jewish immigrants, was for 36 years South Africa's most famous white crusader against apartheid, waging an often lonely and fierce parliamentary battle to enfranchise the black majority. She became one of the few whites to earn respect from black South Africans when she started making regular visits to jailed nationalist leader, Nelson Mandela, after he was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964.
    Tutu paid tribute to Suzman by saying she was the greatest South African to have lived.

    "We pay this tribute very, very proudly, humbly to say that we have lost one of the greatest South Africans and I certainly hope that we can show it as a nation by giving her what she deserves, an official funeral, something like a state funeral for someone who I would say her name will be written in letters of gold. We just owe so much that we will never be able to repay," Tutu said to Reuters Television.

    "Thank you God for Helen Suzman. Thank you for the tremendous contribution that she made making it possible for us to have a Rainbow Nation," said Tutu.
    Suzman retired in 1989 but remained outspoken, criticising the post-apartheid ANC's performance on issues such as unemployment and corruption an expressing concern over 'affirmative action' driving skilled whites out of the country.
    She took a tough line on Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.
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