The Guardian 8 November, 2006
Nelson Mandela:
Ambassador of Conscience
JOHANNESBURG: Former President Nelson Mandela on Wednesday accepted the Ambassador of Conscience Award, the most prestigious honour given each year by the human rights group Amnesty International. The award was presented to Mandela by Nobel Prize-winning author Nadine Gordimer, who described Mandela as one of the great men of the 20th century and a man who through his leadership and dedication to justice and equality had put morality back into government.
"Like Amnesty International, I have struggled for justice and human rights for long years", said Mandela. "I am retired from public life now, but as long as injustice and inequality exist in our world none of us can rest fully. We must become stronger", he said.
Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison under the apartheid laws of South Africa’s former white-minority government. Most of his imprisonment was spent at hard labour at the maximum-security prison on Robben Island off the coast from Cape Town. Through smuggled messages, he continued to direct the anti-apartheid struggle from his cell.
He was released from prison in 1990 and led the negotiations that led to South Africa’s first all-race election in 1994. He was elected as the first black leader of the country in that election and served just one term before retiring.
He shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 with former president FW de Klerk, the last white leader of South Africa, and is credited as the major force in South Africa’s largely peaceful transformation to democracy and majority rule.
"Mandela, through his fight and victory against apartheid, showed the world that no problem is too difficult to solve", said Amnesty International spokesman Bill Shipsey.
Since his retirement, Mandela has remained an outspoken advocate of human rights and at times has even criticised his own beloved African National Congress for not doing enough for people infected with HIV.
Mr Mandela used his award to speak in defence of the poor.
"It is my fervent wish as I come together with human rights activists around the world today that we shine the candle of hope for the forgotten prisoners of poverty", he said. "While poverty exists there is no true freedom."