Nelson Mandela admitted to hospital in South Africa
JOHANNESBURG - Former South African president Nelson Mandela was admitted to hospital on Saturday for treatment for a "long-standing abdominal complaint", the government said.
A statement said the 93-year-old anti-apartheid leader needed specialist medical treatment. It wished him a speedy recovery, but provided no further details.
Mandela, who is known to be in frail health, spent several days at Johannesburg's Milpark hospital just over a year ago with respiratory problems.
Since then he has not appeared in public, and has spent his time between Johannesburg and his ancestral village of Qunu in the impoverished Eastern Cape.
As South Africa's first black president, Mandela occupies a central position in the psyche of a country that was ruled by the 10 percent white minority until the first all-race elections in 1994.
Earlier this month, President Jacob Zuma and the central bank issued a new set of bank notes bearing his image.
Mandela has long since withdrawn from active participation in politics and public life in Africa's biggest economy, having stood down at the end of his first term in office in 1999.
His last major public appearance was in July 2010 at the final of the World Cup in Johannesburg's Soccer City stadium.
He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964.
Early life
Mandela was born July 18, 1918, son of a counsellor to the paramount chief of the Thembu people near Qunu in what is now the Eastern Cape. He is widely known in South Africa by his clan name, Madiba.
Anti-apartheid campaigner
Mandela devoted his life to the fight against white domination in his country, leaving Fort Hare university in the early 1940s before completing his studies. He founded the ANC Youth League with Oliver Tambo and Walter Sisulu.
Mandela was among the first to advocate armed resistance to apartheid, going underground in 1961 to form the ANC's armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (the Spear of the Nation).
Charged with capital offenses in the 1963 Rivonia Trial, his statement from the dock was his political testimony.
"I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die."
He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964.
From prison to president
Mandela spent nearly two decades as a prisoner on Robben Island, a barren lump of rock that sits in shark-infested waters off the coast of Cape Town and served as the apartheid government's main jail for political opponents.
During his incarceration, Mandela largely faded from the public imagination in South Africa, although his then - wife Winnie kept the ANC torch alight throughout the late 1960s and 1970s.
In the 1980s, he became the focus of the international anti-apartheid movement, and the "Free Nelson Mandela" slogan started to seep back into South Africa despite heavy censorship and curbs on political movements.
F.W. de Klerk, South Africa's last white president, finally lifted the ban on the ANC and other liberation movements on Feb. 2, 1990, and Mandela walked free from jail nine days later, an event beamed live around the world.
A year later he was elected president of the ANC and in May 1994 was inaugurated as South Africa's first black president.
He used his prestige and status to push for reconciliation between whites and blacks, setting up a Commission led by Archbiship Desmond Tutu to probe crimes committed by both sides in the anti-apartheid struggle.
In 1999, he handed over to younger leaders he saw as better equipped to manage a fast-growing, rapidly modernising economy - a rare example of an African leader voluntarily departing from power.
Family Life
Restful retirement was not on the cards as Mandela shifted his energies to battling South Africa's AIDS crisis, raising millions of dollars to fight the disease.
His struggle against AIDS became starkly personal in early 2005 when he lost his only surviving son to the disease.
South Africa shared the pain of Mandela's humiliating divorce in 1996 from Winnie Mandela, his second wife, and watched his courtship of Graca Machel, widow of Mozambican President Samora Machel, whom he married on in July 1998.
Busy retirement
In 2007 Mandela celebrated his 89th birthday by launching an international group of elder statesmen, including fellow Nobel peace laureates Tutu and Jimmy Carter, to tackle world problems including climate change, HIV/AIDS and poverty.
In June 2008 Hollywood actor Will Smith hosted a birthday celebration concert honouring Mandela's 90th birthday in July, together with 50,000 fans in London's Hyde Park.
The tribute coincided with disputed elections in Zimbabwe. During his trip to Britain, Mandela was urged to speak out against President Robert Mugabe. Mandela uttered just four words of criticism - "tragic failure of leadership". They were enough to make headline news.
In February 2009, a frail-looking Mandela appeared at an ANC campaign rally alongside ANC leader Jacob Zuma, boosting the party and Zuma who became President in May 2009.
Oscar-winning actor Morgan Freeman played Mandela in 2009 Clint Eastwood film "Invictus", which told the story of how Mandela brought the 1995 Rugby World Cup Championship to his nation.
Mandela made his last appearance at a mass event in July 2010 at the final of the soccer World Cup. He received a thunderous ovation from the 90,000 at the Soccer City stadium in Soweto.
He was hospitalized for nearly a week in January 2011 in Johannesburg with respiratory problems. — Reuters
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