South African History Online

Speech by President Nelson Mandela at the unveiling of the tombstone of Oliver Tambo

Wattville, Benoni, 19 April 1998

Master of ceremonies;
Our dear Adelaide and family;
Comrades and
friends,

The main speaker on this occasion is Thabo Mbeki, the President of the
movement to which Oliver Tambo dedicated his life.

But as one of the remaining friends of O.R.'s I wanted to make a
contribution. I wanted to do so notwithstanding the fact that I had the honour
three days ago to speak at greater length when his name was given to the Tambo
Memorial Hospital.

I wanted to do so if only to say what a unique occasion this is for me
because of the way we have been together through many stages in the struggle for
liberation.

Today's ceremony evokes the time that we were together at Fort Hare as
students - where we benefited from what was then the rare privilege of education
and also learnt early lessons in the costs of defending political principle.

It brings to mind our shared participation in the founding of the ANC Youth
League, when our people demanded a new urgency in the quest for freedom.

It recalls memories of our partnership in law, which in those days inevitably
took on a much wider significance than just the practice of a profession.

Above all, one thinks of when, as the ANC executive, we told O.R. to leave
the country, on an uncharted mission in which he achieved spectacular success.
He placed our organisation on a level it had never reached before.

Through exile and imprisonment kept us apart for many years, Oliver was never
far from my thoughts. When at times in prison there were difficult choices and
decisions to make, I would also think of how Tambo would handle things, such was
his strength as a strategist.

And we think of Oliver's return to South Africa after three decades in exile,
his strength of leadership undimmed by the toll that his dedication had taken on
his health.

Though he died before South Africans cast their first vote in democratic
elections, he did live to see the prisoners released and the exiles return. He
did witness what he knew to be the initial steps of the strategic transition to
a free and democratic South Africa.

His passing, so soon after we had been reunited, was a loss I felt very
deeply.

It was a great loss to the ANC and to all South Africans. And yet he does
live on in the hearts of our people as they work together to realise his ideals
of freedom and human dignity. The many men and women, in every community, who
are busy helping to help unite, and build and transform our society, are a part
of his legacy.

May this memorial always find us strong in our commitment to those ideals!

Thank you.

Issued by: Office of the President