As South Africans continued their long and painful vigil Tuesday for critically ill elder statesman Nelson Mandela, his family was in court in a Shakespearean battle over the bones of his three dead children.
The drama -- with accusations of illegitimacy, appeals to the family's ancestors, allegations of secret exhumations of family bones and a battle over a chieftaincy -- has horrified much of the nation.
The court battle follows a week in which Mandela's oldest daughter, Makaziwe Mandela, described foreign media recording the nation's vigil outside the hospital where her father lies ill as racist "vultures." The comment triggered an acerbic editorial in one South African newspaper: "Evidently grace and dignity are not inherited."
Tuesday's court battle in the Eastern Cape town of Mtatha came after 16 family members, led by Makaziwe, took court action Friday to force Nelson Mandela's grandson, Mandla Mandela, to return the bones of three of the elder statesman's children. The court Friday granted an interim order that he return the bodies, which he contested Tuesday.
According to the family members, Mandla, who is chief of the abaThembu clan, secretly dug up the bones in the dead of night without informing the rest of the family. When the family opened the graves last week, with Mandela gravely ill, there were no bones to be found. Full story...
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The drama -- with accusations of illegitimacy, appeals to the family's ancestors, allegations of secret exhumations of family bones and a battle over a chieftaincy -- has horrified much of the nation.
The court battle follows a week in which Mandela's oldest daughter, Makaziwe Mandela, described foreign media recording the nation's vigil outside the hospital where her father lies ill as racist "vultures." The comment triggered an acerbic editorial in one South African newspaper: "Evidently grace and dignity are not inherited."
Tuesday's court battle in the Eastern Cape town of Mtatha came after 16 family members, led by Makaziwe, took court action Friday to force Nelson Mandela's grandson, Mandla Mandela, to return the bones of three of the elder statesman's children. The court Friday granted an interim order that he return the bodies, which he contested Tuesday.
According to the family members, Mandla, who is chief of the abaThembu clan, secretly dug up the bones in the dead of night without informing the rest of the family. When the family opened the graves last week, with Mandela gravely ill, there were no bones to be found. Full story...
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