South Africa's Mbeki confers awards on heroes, dead and alive

South Africa's 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.