Mbeki confers awards on heroes, dead and alive

Mbeki confers awards on heroes, dead and alive

Agence France-Presse, Pretoria

South African President Thabo Mbeki on Tuesday bestowed national
honors on independence heroes including India's first prime
minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Indonesia's founding president
Sukarno as well as a university where many African liberation
leaders had studied.

The awards, presented twice yearly, go to South Africans and
foreigners for outstanding service to their country.

"Because of their and others' efforts, we are able to live and
develop in a world of freedom, without the fetters of oppression
or exclusion," Mbeki said at the ceremony.

"These distinguished members of our national orders are the
guardians of ubuntu (humanity), handmaidens of our liberty and
defender of a shared human destiny," Mbeki said.

"They stand as beacons that must guide us forever as we build
a society founded on the high ideals of freedom, justice,
equality and human solidarity."

Four deceased foreign leaders -- former Guyana prime minister
Cheddi Jagan, former Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru,
former Indonesian president Sukarno and former Guinean diplomat
Diallo Boubacar -- were honored.

Former Indonesian president Megawati Soekarnoputri accepted
the award for her father, Sukarno.

Mbeki also honored South Africa's University of Fort Hare,
alma mater to several African liberation leaders, including
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe who led his country to freedom
from British rule in 1980.

South African Nobel medicine prize laureate Sydney Brenner
received the highest award for South Africans whose achievements
have had an international impact.

Former parliament speaker Frene Ginwala and John Dube, the
founding father of the now ruling African National Congress, were
other recipients for their contributions to the struggle for
democracy, human rights, nation building, justice, peace and
conflict resolution.