In this Dec. 7, 2005, file photo, former South African President Nelson Mandela, 87, is in a jovial mood at the Mandela Foundation in Johannesburg. The South African government on Friday denied that former president Nelson Mandela was in a permanent vegetative state, as outlined in court documents filed on June 26. AP PHOTO/DENIS FARRELL
JOHANNESBURG—Nelson Mandela is in critical but stable condition, the South African government said Friday, while a close friend said the antiapartheid leader was conscious and responsive earlier this week.
The government reiterated that Mandela is not in a vegetative state, contrary to information in recent court documents.
A court paper filed June 27 concerning Mandela family graves said affidavits would be provided from his physicians to show that Mandela “is in a permanent vegetative state.”
A later filing dropped that phrase. Both court filings, however, said that Mandela’s breathing was machine assisted.
A close friend of Mandela’s, Denis Goldberg, told Sky News on Friday that he visited Mandela on Monday and that Mandela was conscious and responsive to what he was saying.
Goldberg also quoted from something Mandela’s wife told him.
“There is no sign of a general organ collapse and therefore they do not recommend switching off the machine because there’s every chance that his health will improve,” Goldberg quoted wife Graca Machel as saying.
“The matter has been discussed and the decision was against,” he said.
A “persistent vegetative state” is defined as the condition of patients with severe brain damage in whom coma has progressed to a state of wakefulness without detectable awareness, according to the New England Journal of Medicine.
Earlier condition
Goldberg said the legal papers that said Mandela was “vegetative” might have been written when Mandela was in a coma or unconscious, and that perhaps Mandela then improved.
“Maybe he’s recovered a bit and that’s what I assume,” he said. “The lawyers can say what they like. I’m telling you what I saw.”
Still, Mandela’s situation is grave. Another court affidavit said that “the anticipation of his impending death is based on real and substantial grounds.”
A South African doctor, Adri Kok, said it was unlikely that a person of Mandela’s age—he is 94—can be taken off mechanical ventilation, another word for life support, and recover.
The court filing came in a case brought by 15 Mandela family members against a Mandela grandson who had moved the remains of three Mandela children from their original burial site.
A court ordered the bodies to be moved back to Mandela’s hometown of Qunu.
Tutu’s appeal
The family feud drew a rebuke late Thursday from retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu who appealed to the family of Mandela, also known by his clan name Madiba, to overcome their differences.
“Please, please, please may we think not only of ourselves. It’s almost like spitting in Madiba’s face,” Tutu said in a statement released by his foundation.
“Your anguish, now, is the nation’s anguish—and the world’s. We want to embrace you, to support you, to shine our love for Madiba through you. Please may we not besmirch his name,” Tutu said.
The leader of South Africa’s antiapartheid movement, Mandela spent 27 years in prison during white racist rule.
He was freed in 1990 and became South Africa’s first black president in 1994.
‘I have lived my life’
Nearly 15 years ago, Mandela was unperturbed by his own death, telling a dying teenager that he had lived his life to the fullest.
The video dating from 1998, broadcast by American news channel CBS on Thursday as Mandela remained critically ill in hospital, showed the towering South African statesman visiting a 15-year-old, also named Nelson.
“Understanding the fact that I’m near the end, I remain optimistic with my morale very high, because I’m saying I have lived my life,” the statesman, then 80, told the teen, who was dying of brain cancer.
In the amateur video, the boy, his head shaved, smiled shyly from his bed at the peace icon, who wore one of his colorful trademark shirts.
Posters of cars adorned the wall next to where the then-president sat holding a teacup.
“If your spirit is not optimistic, your morale is not high, medicine is not very effective,” Mandela said.
The boy died less than three months after the visit.
Broadcast as the 94-year-old nears one month in hospital, the words carry added poignancy.
According to court documents from Mandela family lawyers, filed nine days ago, doctors believed Mandela was in a “permanent vegetative state” and they advised his family to turn off his life support machine. The Mandela family is reportedly exploring this option as a probability.
South Africa’s presidency has since said his condition has improved.
“We confirm our earlier statement released this afternoon after President Jacob Zuma visited Madiba in the hospital that he remains in a critical but stable condition,” said the statement using Mandela’s clan name.
Gratitude
Earlier in the day, Mandela’s wife Machel said that while Mandela has been occasionally uncomfortable during his nearly one-month hospital stay, he has seldom been in pain.
Machel expressed gratitude for the outpouring of well-wishes from around the world for the Nobel peace laureate.
Machel spoke about her husband’s condition at a fund-raising drive for a children’s hospital that will be named after Mandela.
“Whatever is the outcome of his stay in hospital, that will remain the second time where he offered his nation an opportunity to be united under the banner of our flag, under the banner of our constitution,” she said.
The former president, who turns 95 later this month, was rushed to the hospital on June 8 with a recurring lung infection.
Acerbic family feud
Mandela’s grandson thrust the increasingly acerbic family feud over the grave sites firmly into the public eye Thursday. (See story on this page.)
“Please, please, please may we think not only of ourselves. It’s like spitting in Madiba’s face,” said Tutu in a statement, using Mandela’s clan name.
After forensic tests confirmed the identities, the hearses transported the remains to Qunu for the reburial, according to police.
Family members and community elders attended a ceremony on the Mandela property that included the singing of hymns. It was in Qunu where Mandela grew up and where the former president has said he wants to be buried.
‘Highly disappointing’
Fifteen Mandela family members pursued court action last week to force the grandson to move the bodies back to their original burial site.
Mandla—the oldest male Mandela heir and a tribal chief—told a news conference on Thursday that his grandfather “would be highly disappointed in what is unraveling.”
Mlawu Tyatyeka, an expert on the Xhosa culture of Mandela’s family, said the court case over the graves was decided quickly because the family knows that Mandsoon die.
“It’s not a case of wishing him to die. It’s a case of making sure that by the time he dies, his dying wish has been fulfilled,” he said. “We have a belief that should you ignore a dying wish, all
Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years during white racist rule and was freed in 1990 before being elected president in all-race elections. He won the Nobel Peace Prize along with former President F.W. de Klerk.