Mandela treated me like a daughter: Chandrika
10 December 2013 07:00 pm
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Former South African President Nelson Mandela embraced me like a daughter each time we met, and asked me how my mother was doing, says former Sri Lanka President Chandrika Kumaratunga.
Mandela and Kumratunga would often sit beside each other at multi-lateral conferences since their countries were alphabetically connected.
But even further, Kumaratunga said Mandela had a great deal of respect for her mother Srimavo Bandaranike, the world’s first female premier.
Even though Mandela had never met Ms. Bandaranike, he never forgot the letters of support she sent him during his nearly three decades of incarceration.
Kumaratunga says ‘The Elders’ – a group of leaders brought together by Nelson Mandela in 2007 to address major causes of human suffering approached her confidentially three to four years ago, during the end of the war to address reconciliation in Sri Lanka and minority rights.
"I told them you can do many things in Sri Lanka, but our government won’t listen. I told them to send former President Mandela to Sri Lanka, and maybe, this will convince the government to listen since he was a skillful statesman"
Chandrika wanted
Mandela in Lanka
She says the group contacted her again after the war inquiring if they can do anything to assist with the reconciliation process in Sri Lanka.
“I told them you can do many things in Sri Lanka, but our government won’t listen. I told them to send former President Mandela to Sri Lanka, and maybe, this will convince the government to listen since he was a skillful statesman.”
Kumaratunga said Mandela’s declining health had put a halt to travel, and the trip to Sri Lanka never materialised.
Latest offer from
South Africa
South African President Jacob Zuma shared his country’s reconciliation process with the Sri Lankan government during a visit to Colombo last month and offered to play a role in the island nation. Zuma proposed a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in Sri Lanka.