Helen Suzman should be given 'state funeral'

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White anti-apartheid campaigner Helen Suzman dies at 91

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-01-03 13:37

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has called for anti-apartheid campaigner Helen Suzman to be given a state funeral.

Veteran anti-apartheid activist Helen Suzman with Nelson Mandela at his South Africa home in 1990. [Agencies]

He said the member of parliament who died on New Year's Day aged 91, deserves nothing less than an official send-off.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate said: "She was a true heroine who contributed to our country's peaceful transition when many predicted a racial bloodbath.

"South Africa is a poorer place without her... We owe her an immense debt. The least a grateful nation should do to show its appreciation for her contribution is to afford her an official funeral."

Suzman – a white Jewish immigrants' daughter who served in South Africa's legislature from 1953 to 1989, a lone voice of parliamentary dissent against white minority rule – died peacefully at her home in Johannesburg.

Her daughter Frances Jowell said a private funeral would be held over the weekend.

Suzman was the first lawmaker to visit Nelson Mandela in jail during his long incarceration. But she also critical of the post-apartheid African National Congress government's record on fighting Aids, crime and unemployment.

She stirred controversy by alleging that the African National Congress, which has ruled South Africa since the demise of apartheid in 1994, had played down the role of white liberals in the struggle against whites-only rule.

"Our country has lost a great patriot and a fearless fighter against apartheid," said Mandela's foundation.