Nelson Mandela, first president of democratic South Africa We enter into a covenant that we shall build a society in which all South Africans, both black and white, will be able to walk tall, without any fear in their hearts, assured of their inalienable right to human dignity - a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world. In his measured yet lilting oratorical tones, the new leader's words rang out across the grass-sloped grounds of the Union Buildings in Pretoria to the crowds below, that bright inauguration day. At 75, Nelson Mandela had won an achingly long struggle against apartheid and just become his country's first black president. Up to 100,000 were present to witness the ceremony of May 10, 1994; on screens worldwide, hundreds of millions watched from afar. IN Obituaries For turning the dream of a democratic, desegregated and internationally respected South Africa into reality, the credit belongs to many but must go most of all to the grizzled but grit-filled figure who has died aged 95. What made his achievement all the more remarkable was that for nearly three decades, years that should have been the most productive of his life, he languished in prison. Jailed for life in 1964 for plotting the overthrow of the white minority regime, Mandela was locked up for 27 years before the authorities decided he would be less dangerous as a free man. He emerged from prison to negotiate, with courage and compassion, a political settlement to his country's seemingly intractable problems. His was a vision marred neither by discernible personal bitterness nor hostility to his jailers. Instead, it was fed by magnanimity and a generosity of spirit - qualities that were as much part of his contribution to the eventual political agreement as the new constitution he had helped draft. Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born on July 18, 1918, in the Transkei region of what is today South Africa's Eastern Cape province. His father, Hendry, who belonged to the royal family of the Xhosa-speaking Tembu people, followed their polygamous conventions and Mandela's mother, Nosekeni Fanny, was wife number three of four he married. Years later, Mandela described polygamy as "quite inexcusable" because it showed "contempt for women." Yet he recalled that his father's other wives were always supportive, explaining: "They regarded me as their son, not as their stepson or half-son as you would say in the culture of the whites." Hendry was pagan and both were illiterate but Fanny had converted to Methodism and they sent their boy to a mission school. It was teachers there who gave him the Christian name Nelson. Despite long years of white rule, the Transkei of Mandela's youth was and is a bastion of traditional African culture. Mandela's father was principal councillor to the acting paramount chief of the Tembu: when Hendry died the young Nelson went to live with the regent, Jongintaba, who liked to resolve disputes through consensus. A leader, said the clan elder, should be like a shepherd directing his flock by skilful persuasion. It was a lesson in the art of politics that Mandela was never to forget. After his Methodist schooling, Mandela went to the nearby University College of Fort Hare. As the country's only black tertiary institution, Fort Hare was a hotbed of activism. Mandela was eventually expelled for leading a student rebellion. He went to Johannesburg, completed his degree by correspondence and set up the nation's first black legal practice with Oliver Tambo, who after going into exile, was elected president of the African National Congress - a post Mandela himself would not hold until 1991 once out of jail. The ANC had been set up in 1912 as a "native" voice in the Union of South Africa that had emerged after the Boer wars. Mandela and Tambo defended black dissidents, becoming the ANC's de facto law firm. Mandela, who became head of the ANC Youth League, joined other activists in civil disobedience campaigns. The fight against apartheid was becoming more bitter, particularly after the 1960 Sharpeville massacre when police shot dead 69 protesters. Mandela slowly began to lose faith in non-violent methods. In 1956, he was one of 156 people charged with high treason for opposing white rule. As a lawyer he helped conduct the defence and, with the judiciary still able to assert a modicum of independence from the regime, the accused were finally acquitted in 1961. He then spent 17 months in hiding - the ANC had been outlawed. As his biographer, Anthony Sampson, said: "He was to become more famous in the shadows than he had ever been in broad daylight." Media dubbed him the "Black Pimpernel" for the way he kept evading capture and it was while underground that he helped form the ANC's armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation). It was during those long and lonely years that my hunger for the freedom of my own people became a hunger for the freedom of all people, white and black But the following year he was arrested in Natal, tried and jailed for five years, for inciting strikes and leaving the country without a passport. He appeared at the opening of the hearing dressed in a traditional Xhosa leopard skin, "literally carrying on my back the history, culture and heritage of my people." Mandela was still in jail in 1963 when several Umkhonto leaders were arrested on a farm in the Johannesburg district of Rivonia, where police discovered evidence of plans to overthrow white rule by force. Although Mandela had authorised no plot - and publicly had only ever advocated attacking unoccupied state installations - he had been commander of Spear of the Nation. As such he became the "first accused" in the treason trial, where a guilty verdict could mean the gallows. His speech at the trial was widely hailed as the most effective he gave. Telling the court that the ANC was engaged in a "struggle for the right to life," he finished with his own powerful credo: "During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people," he said. I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die. As Sampson, who died in 2004, observed: "His words reverberated around the world, providing a manifesto for anti-apartheid campaigners everywhere." In the event, none of those found guilty received the death penalty, but Mandela and eight of his co-defendants were sentenced to life imprisonment. Along with Walter Sisulu and Govan Mbeki, he was consigned to Robben Island jail off Cape Town, where prisoners were made to hew stone. This harsh incarceration taught Mandela the discipline that made him a demanding negotiator in later life. It also prompted him to re-examine his principles and ideas. Rather than defying or despising his warders, he engaged with them, learning the Afrikaans language and history while leading inmates in their demands for better treatment. Over the years he presided over discussions among the diverse groups of political prisoners streaming on to the island, many of them less tolerant of white sensitivities than he. These seminars proved to be an incubator for the ideas that were to underpin South Africa's non-racial democracy. "It was during those long and lonely years that my hunger for the freedom of my own people became a hunger for the freedom of all people, white and black," he wrote in his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom. I know as well as I know anything that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed. The years in jail were Mandela's defining experience but took a heavy toll on an already troubled personal life. He had married a nurse, Evelyn Mase, in 1944. They had two sons and two daughters, one of whom died in infancy. But Evelyn, a Jehovah's Witness, detested politics and the marriage was not helped by Mandela's eye for a pretty woman. After some 13 years the pair divorced. Their elder son Thembekile was killed in a car crash while Mandela was in prison. He was not allowed to attend the funeral. From the moment he was freed, Mandela had used his acumen to steer the ANC towards racial reconciliation and compromises on issues such as multiracial power sharing In 1958, he married Winnie Nomzamo Madikizela, a social worker 16 years his junior, and the couple had two daughters. Winnie showed a talent for campaigning, but once Mandela's long jail sentence began she was harassed by the police, imprisoned and put under house arrest. Neither she nor any of Mandela's children were allowed more than sporadic visits to him. Later, Winnie was drawn into the radical and increasingly violent activism that began flaring in black townships in the 1970s. Outside South Africa, anti-apartheid campaigners were making Mandela's release an international cause. Political pressure and economic, cultural and sporting sanctions weighed on the apartheid leadership. Mandela was transferred to progressively better quarters. Finally, FW de Klerk, the white president, lifted the ban on the ANC and agreed to free Mandela unconditionally. On February 11 1990 Mandela was released to walk the streets of Cape Town with Winnie. World leaders rushed to court him. New York gave the Mandelas a ticker-tape parade on Broadway and lit the Empire State Building in the ANC's colours of black, green and gold. But Mandela's political and tactical skills, honed in prison, faced an intense test in negotiations with Mr de Klerk. In spite of bitter disagreement and a background of ominous political violence, he helped seal the historic agreement that brought about South Africa's first one-person one-vote election in April 1994. The two shared the Nobel peace prize. From the moment he was freed, Mandela had used his acumen to steer the ANC towards racial reconciliation and compromises on issues such as multiracial power sharing (under which Mr de Klerk stayed on as first deputy president for what turned out to be two years). Tactfully but firmly, Mandela outflanked radicals to unite the movement behind this concession. During dangerous moments in the transition, which pushed South Africa to the brink of civil war, Mandela insisted his followers should remain peaceful. They obeyed. He also handled white audiences with a deftness born of his charm. Fighting his first general election, Mandela and the ANC won a clear victory. The way was open at last for him to become South Africa's leader. As president, he oversaw his country's efforts to heal old wounds, chief among them the fraught hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The formula, agreed with Mr de Klerk, allowed the judge-led commission to grant individual amnesties provided those who had perpetrated murder and torture under apartheid admitted the truth of what they had done. Mandela had a talent for the kind of gestures that would help bring people together. When the national side won the Rugby World Cup in 1995, he delighted fans of the largely white sport by turning up in a green Springbok jersey. He exhibited a light touch even in the hard business of government, acting almost like a constitutional monarch who leaves the devilish detail to others. Although he could be firm to the point of obstinacy, he knew when to be amenable to change. An advocate of nationalisation while in prison, as president he adopted more market-friendly economic policies in keeping with the rising realities of globalisation. Even with the South African Communist party and the Cosatu trade union federation as the ANC's junior government partners, he helped put South Africa on the path of fiscal prudence. Inevitably, redressing chronic economic inequalities proved more intractable. Revered at home, where his clan name Madiba came into ever wider use as his honorific, Mandela also became a global icon known for his colourful shirts and for photo opportunities with celebrities. Chivalrous and exquisitely polite, he dazzled almost everyone who met him and gave South Africans a new sense of wellbeing. He seemed to embody the feelgood factor that surrounded the turn of the millennium. If any man on earth has earned the right to speak his mind, Mandela has Bill Clinton, former US president In the pariah years of apartheid, the social climate had been rigid, puritanical, oppressive. The life-enhancing, party-going Mandela made his country an exciting place to be. He collected international honours, including more than 50 honorary doctorates from universities around the world, but through his charitable foundation in Johannesburg he also mobilised funds for education, poverty reduction and the suddenly pressing fight against HIV/Aids. Again, though, his private life brought him woes. Winnie, who had a political following of her own, had been tried for her involvement in the murder of a 14-year-old activist and found guilty of helping to kidnap him. Her personal relationship with Mandela was crumbling and she was becoming a political liability. In sorrow, Mandela decided on divorce. Yet before long he formed a relationship with Graça Machel, the widow of Samora Machel, Mozambique's former president. In 1998, on Mandela's 80th birthday, the couple were married. The following year Mandela, who had by now given up the leadership of the ANC, stood down as president. Elected as his chosen successor was Thabo Mbeki, whose father Govan had shared imprisonment with Mandela. Yet leaving the office in the Union Buildings that Mr de Klerk had occupied before him did not mean he disappeared from view. He became known for his cheerful, some said indiscriminate, embrace of friends and of sponsors willing to help his causes. He also upset some of his admirers with outspoken statements on world affairs. Ahead of the Iraq war he accused George W Bush, the US president of the time, of "wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust." Yet as Bill Clinton, Mr Bush's predecessor, remarked: "If any man on earth has earned the right to speak his mind, Mandela has." History is bound to regard him as not only his country's greatest statesman but also one of the past century's most inspirational people on the planet. For his own part, in the final passage of an autobiography begun in prison and published during his presidency, Mandela wrote simply: "I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way . . . But I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended. Now, to the sadness of billions, it is.