Britain honours Mandela struggle against apartheid

LONDON, Aug 29 (Reuters) Britain honoured Nelson Mandela today by unveiling a bronze statue of South Africa's first black president alongside those of statesmen such as Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln.

A frail Mandela, 89, watched as Prime Minister Gordon Brown helped remove a cloth covering the 9 feet (2.7 metre) bronze statue showing the anti-apartheid leader gesturing during a speech.

Mandela's statue takes its place in London's Parliament Square, looking towards the British parliament -- a site reserved for memorials to great leaders.

Unusually Mandela, who spent 27 years in prison for his struggle against apartheid before becoming president in 1994, is being honoured with a statue during his lifetime.

''Though this statue is of one man, it should ... symbolise all those who have resisted oppression, especially in my country,'' Mandela told a cheering crowd.

''The history of the struggle in South Africa is rich with the stories of heroes and heroines, some of them leaders, some of them followers. All of them deserve to be remembered,'' Mandela said.

He recalled that when he and fellow anti-apartheid leader Oliver Tambo visited London in 1962, they had joked that they hoped that ''a statue of a black person'' would one day be put up next to that of South African Prime Minister Jan Smuts, which stands nearby.

''Oliver would have been proud today if he were here,'' Mandela said, adding that he hoped to be back in London next year for an AIDS benefit concert marking his 90th birthday.

TRIBUTE FROM BROWN Brown said Mandela would be remembered for ever as ''the man who no prison cell, no intimidation, no violence, no show trial, no threat of execution could ever silence.'' The statue was the idea of Donald Woods, the crusading South African anti-apartheid newspaper editor.

After Woods died in 2001, director Richard Attenborough, who made ''Cry Freedom'', a film about Woods's friendship with black consciousness leader Steve Biko, pushed the project forward.

Woods's widow, Wendy, joined Brown, London Mayor Ken Livingstone and other British political leaders at the unveiling ceremony along with U.S. civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson and model Naomi Campbell.

Attenborough announced that Brown had bestowed the title of ''dame'' on Mandela's wife, Graca Machel.

The site of the statue was chosen after a five-year row. The local council said it would not be appropriate to place it in Trafalgar Square, site of Nelson's Column.

The statue was sculpted by the late Ian Walters, chosen in part because of his links to the anti-apartheid movement.

Mandela, who leaned heavily on a walking stick on his way to the podium, received a rapturous standing ovation from the several thousand-strong crowd.

Janah Namujju, a 24-year-old mental health worker who moved to Britain from South Africa seven years ago, said: ''To me as a young woman in London, he is my absolute hero for what he stood up for and what he believed in.

''This is a very fitting tribute to a wonderful man.'' REUTERS SS VC1925