SOUTH AFRICA: GADHAFI VISITS SOWETO TOWNSHIP

AP Archive
AP Archive
22.7 هزار بار بازدید - 9 سال پیش - (15 Jun 1999) Arabic/Eng/Nat
(15 Jun 1999) Arabic/Eng/Nat


Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has visited the Soweto township on the eve of the anniversary of the Soweto riots.

He placed flowers at a memorial to the first child victim of the uprising and met Walter Sisulu who spent decades in a South African prison as a leader of the African National Congress.

A-N-C hero Walter Sisulu still lives in the Soweto township.

His home was the first place Moammar Gadhafi visited when he toured the area on Tuesday.

The Libyan leader was greeted by enthusiastic crowds wherever he went.

Sisulu, like Nelson Mandela, spent decades in a South African prison because of his role in the anti-apartheid struggle.

Holding hands with the elderly A-N-C leader, Gadhafi called his visit to a free South Africa a dream.

He said Libyan passport holders had for years been forbidden to visit apartheid South Africa and he had supported the liberation struggle.

Sisulu accompanied Gadhafi to a monument which marks the Soweto uprising that began on June 16, 1976.

The uprising was a turning point in the struggle by South Africa's black majority to overthrow white minority rule, a fight which led to Mandela becoming the country's first black president, in 1994.

Thabo Mbeki, Mandela's successor, is to be inaugurated on Wednesday, exactly 23 years to the day that the uprising began.

Gadhafi laid flowers at the monument, which commemorates Hector Peterson, the first child killed when South African police opened fire on a crowd of protesting school children.

And he told the crowd he was honoured to have spent time with their leaders.

SOUNDBITE: (Arabic with English translation)
"I am very lucky indeed that the opportunity has arisen for me to live these days with the great revolutionary leaders of our brothers in Africa, such as Nelson Mandela and Sizulu."
SUPERCAPTION: Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi

It's Gadhafi's first visit to South Africa since the United Nations lifted the trade sanctions on Libya over the Lockerbie bombing affair.

APT

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9 سال پیش در تاریخ 1394/04/30 منتشر شده است.
22,795 بـار بازدید شده
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