JOHANNESBURG -- South Africa's
former President Nelson Mandela underwent more medical tests Monday in a
military hospital as the public and journalists outside asked: What, if
anything, is wrong with the health of the 94-year-old anti-apartheid icon?
Government officials in charge of
releasing information about Mandela have repeatedly declined to provide
specifics about Mandela's now three-day hospitalization, calling on citizens to
respect the beloved politician's privacy. Yet Mandela represents something more
than a man to many in this nation of 50 million people and to the world at
large, and the longer he remains in hospital care, the louder the demand for
the private details about his health will grow.
"He symbolizes what our country
can achieve with a statesman of his stature. He's our inspiration and
personifies our aspirations," an editorial in Monday's edition of the
Sowetan newspaper reads. "And that's why we dread his hospital visits,
routine or not. That's why even now when we are told not to panic, we do."
Mandela is revered for being a
leader of the struggle against racist white rule in South Africa and for
preaching reconciliation once he emerged from prison in 1990 after 27 years
behind bars. He won South Africa's first truly democratic elections in 1994,
serving one five-year term. The Nobel laureate later retired from public life
to live in his remote village of Qunu, in the Eastern Cape, and last made a
public appearance when his country hosted the 2010 World Cup soccer tournament.
On Saturday, President Jacob Zuma's
office announced Mandela had been admitted to a Pretoria hospital for medical
tests and for care that was "consistent for his age." Zuma visited
Mandela on Sunday and found the former leader to be "comfortable and in
good care," presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj said in a statement.
Such is the level of confidentiality
surrounding Mandela's hospitalization that it wasn't until Monday that the
public received government confirmation that he was being treated at 1 Military
Hospital in Pretoria, the capital. That word came from Defense Minister
Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, who visited the aging leader there.
Speaking to journalists afterward,
Mapisa-Nqakula said Mandela was "undergoing a series of tests to determine
what is going on in his body." She said Mandela's release date would be
determined by the result of those tests.
"He's doing very, very
well," Mapisa-Nqakula said. "And it is important to keep him in our
prayers and also to be as calm as possible and not cause a state of panic
because I think that is not what all of us need."
The presidency later issued a
statement Monday saying Mandela "had a good night's rest" and would
have more tests done.
"He is in good hands,"
Maharaj said in the statement.
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