LEADING South African anti-apartheid activist Helen Suzman has died

[templetonstoy]

January 02, 2009
Article from: Agence France-Presse

Suzman served as a lone voice of parliamentary dissent against white minority rule for decades.

She served in the legislature between 1953 and 1989, and died peacefully at her home in Johannesburg yesterday, her daughter Frances Jowell said.

"We are waiting for family and all grandchildren to arrive," Jowell said, adding that a private funeral would be held over the weekend.

The feisty Suzman, the first lawmaker to visit Nelson Mandela in jail during his long incarceration, was however critical of the post-apartheid African National Congress government on fighting AIDS, crime and unemployment.

She had also stirred controversy by alleging that the ANC, in charge since the demise of apartheid in 1994, had airbrushed the role of white liberals in the struggle against whites-only rule.

Branded by apartheid-era leader P.W. Botha as a "vicious little cat", the diminutive Suzman drew grudging respect from critics - with one saying she had "steel in her teeth".