The atrocity was reportedly condemned strongly by South African president Thabo Mbeki and Winnie Mandela, among others, who openly spoke in favour of Marike de Klerk.

Thabo Mbeki was the executive face of government in South Africa from 1994.

His parents were both teachers and activists in a rural area of ANC strength, and Mbeki describes himself as " born into the struggle "; a portrait of Karl Marx sat on the family mantelpiece, and a portrait of Mohandas Gandhi was on the wall.

During this time, the ANC was banned and Mbeki was involved in underground activities in the Pretoria-Witwatersrand area.

In December 1961, Mbeki was elected secretary of the African Students ' Association.

In 1973, Mbeki was sent to Botswana, where he engaged the Botswana government in discussions to open an ANC office there.

While in exile, his brother Jama Mbeki, a supporter of the rival Pan Africanist Congress, was killed by agents of the Lesotho government in 1982 while attempting to assist the Lesotho Liberation Army.

When Mbeki finally was able to return home to South Africa and was reunited with his own father, the elder Mbeki told a reporter, " You must remember that Thabo Mbeki is no longer my son.

" A news article pointed out that this was an expression of pride, explaining, " For Govan Mbeki, a son was a mere biological appendage ; to be called a comrade, on the other hand, was the highest honour.

Mbeki devoted his life to the ANC and during his years in exile was given increased responsibility.

Mbeki was appointed head of the ANC's information department in 1984 and then became head of the international department in 1989, reporting directly to Oliver Tambo, then President of the ANC.

In 1985, Mbeki was a member of a delegation that began meeting secretly with representatives of the South African business community, and in 1989, he led the ANC delegation that conducted secret talks with the South African government.

Mbeki, as an ANC insider and while president, was a major force behind the continued neoliberal structure of the South African economy.

Yet, the fact that this was remarkable confirms the broader observation that Mbeki values the exercise of centralised policy over demonstrations of grassroots populism.

In the face of laws restricting public assembly and freedom of the media, restricting campaigning by the MDC for the 2005 Zimbabwe parliamentary elections, President Mbeki was quoted as saying: I have no reason to think that anything will happen … that anybody in Zimbabwe will act in a way that will militate against the elections being free and fair.

It was disbanded on 9 July 2002 by its last chairperson, South African President Thabo Mbeki, and replaced by the African Union ( AU ).

An article Also in 2000, the Johannesburg Mail & Guardian reported that in a leaked text for a speech Mbeki was to give to an ANC caucus, Mbeki claimed that the CIA and Western drug companies were secretly promoting the view that HIV causes AIDS in order to increase sales of anti-HIV drugs.

The full meeting of the Commonwealth had failed in a consensus to decide on the issue, and they tasked the previous, present ( at the time ), and future leaders of Commonwealth ( respectively President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, John Howard of Australia, and Mbeki of South Africa ) to come to a consensus between them over the issue.

He received a special presidential award from President Nelson Mandela in 1994 as well as the presidential sport achievement award from President Thabo Mbeki in 2001.

* Sewgolum received a posthumous achievement award from President Thabo Mbeki in 2003.

* Sewsunker " Papwa " Sewgolum receives a posthumous achievement award from President Thabo Mbeki

On January 28, 2008, New Zealand anti-apartheid activist John Minto raise a furor over his letter to Former South African President Thabo Mbeki after being nominated for the award saying that he would refuse, on principle, to accept any award from the ANC.

On 23 September 2007 President Mbeki suspended NPA Head Vusi Pikoli, allegedly because of " an irretrievable breakdown " in the relationship between Pikoli and Justice Minister Brigitte Mabandla.

President Mbeki suspended NPA Head Vusi Pikoli, allegedly because of " an irretrievable breakdown " in the relationship between Pikoli and Justice Minister Brigitte Mabandla.

Zuma intervened when Thomson was hesitant to take Nkobi on as its BEE partner because Mbeki allegedly told them that he had reservations about Shaik and his business ventures.

* 1987 – Govan Mbeki is released from custody after serving 24 years of a life sentence for terrorism and treason.

However, through the Tripartite Alliance and the sitting of many SACP members on the ANC's NEC, the SACP has wielded influence from within the ANC, often serving as an ideological opposition against the presidency and socio-economic policies of Thabo Mbeki ( 1999 – 2008 ); this became most apparent with the ouster of Mbeki from the presidencies of both the party ( 2007, by vote ) and the government ( 2008, by ANC party recall ) and his eventual replacement in both offices with Jacob Zuma, who is widely seen as being more conciliatory to the ideological demands of both the SACP and COSATU.

Govan Mbeki was released from custody after serving 24 years in the Robben Island prison on 5 November 1987.

Govan Mbeki had come to the rural Eastern Cape as a political activist after earning two university degrees ; he urged his family to make the ANC their family, and of his children, Thabo Mbeki is the one who most clearly followed that instruction, joining the party at age 14 and devoting his life to it thereafter.

The trial ended in June 1964 ; Kathrada was sentenced to life imprisonment along with Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Andrew Mlangeni, Billy Nair, Elias Motsoaledi, Raymond Mhlaba and Dennis Goldberg.

Mbeki has mediated in difficult and complex issues on the African continent including Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo ( DRC ), Côte d ' Ivoire, and some important peace agreements.

Thabo Mbeki has also been criticized for responding on negative comments made about governance by accusing them of racism.

Mbeki used his weekly column in the ANC newsletter ANC Today, to produce discussions on a variety of topics.

Mbeki has used his position on the world stage to call for an end to global apartheid, a term he uses to describe the disparity between a small minority of rich nations and a great number of impoverished states in the world, arguing that a " global human society based on poverty for many and prosperity for a few, characterised by islands of wealth, surrounded by a sea of poverty, is unsustainable ".

High-ranking diplomatic visits to South Africa repeatedly attempted to persuade Mbeki to take a harder line with Robert Mugabe over violent state-sponsored attacks on political opponents and opposition movements, expropriation of white-owned farms by ZANU-PF allied " war veterans ", sanctioning against the press, and infringements on the independence of the judiciary.

On 5 February 2006 Mbeki said in an interview with SABC television that Zimbabwe had missed a chance to resolve its political crisis in 2004 when secret talks to agree on a new constitution ended in failure.

* Mbeki warns on China-Africa ties

:" There was no surprise in the fact that Mandela, Sisulu, Mbeki, Motsoaledi, Mlangeni, and Goldberg were found guilty on all four counts.

On 26 June 1980 the Secretary General of the African National Congress, Alfred Nzo, announced the conferring of the Isitwalandwe Medal, the ANC's highest honour, on Govan Mbeki.

However, when Coetzee won his Nobel Prize, Mbeki congratulated him " on behalf of the South African nation and indeed the continent of Africa ".

Thabo Mbeki was elected president ( unopposed ) by the new Assembly on 14 June 1999, succeeding Nelson Mandela.

The official opening by President Thabo Mbeki took place during the inauguration ceremony on 10 November 2005.

Although the Cabinet voted to reaffirm that South African AIDS policy is based on the evidence that HIV causes AIDS, former President Thabo Mbeki continued to support the AIDS denialist position, as did his Minister of Health, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang.

Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, acting for President Thabo Mbeki, signed it into law on 29 November, and it became law the following day, one day before the Constitutional Court's order would otherwise have come into force.