Mandela marks birthday with friends, family, Michael Jackson

Sunday, 18-Jul-1999 11:51:28

JOHANNESBURG, July 18 (AFP) - Former South African president Nelson Mandela Sunday celebrated his 81st birthday quietly at home with friends, family -- and Michael Jackson. Journalists saw the pop star, who is in South African on business, arrive at Mandela's Johannesburg home in time for a lunch otherwise attended mainly by family.

A spokeswoman said Mandela, who retired last month after five years as arguably the world's most popular president, wanted to spend the day with his four children, his 32 grandchildren and great-grandchildren and his wife of one year, Graca Machel.

"It is very private ... He's decided that this year he wants it quiet," private secretary Zelda le Grange said. Mandela and Machel, the widow of late Mozambican president Samora Machel who married Mandela in a secret ceremony on his 80th birthday, were also celebrating their first wedding anniversary, she said. "They have had so little time in the past to spend like this, it's really quite special," Le Grange said.

Mandela's daughter, Zinzi Mandela-Hlongwane, told the SAPA news agency that his grandchildren had put together a special programme "to welcome him back as a full-time member of the family". President Thabo Mbeki, who succeeded Mandela, was among the first to wish Happy Birthday to the man credited with bringing a peaceful end to white minority rule, a Mbeki spokesman said. "The President is on holiday in north Africa but he would have phoned former president Mandela early this morning to wish him all the best," spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa told AFP. In a statement released early Sunday, Mbeki said: "The government and people of South Africa wish Madiba many, many happy returns. "The whole country is reminded of the wonderful gift he has given us all, of love and peace among all South Africans -- black and white, for which we are eternally indebted."

Mamoepa said the director-general of Mbeki's office, Frank Chikane, would visit the Mandela home "to deliver flowers and best wishes." Gifts and cards from the public, business leaders and politicians streamed into Mandela's private office, while Sunday newspapers ran front-page birthday wishes.

The low-key celebrations are a far cry from the music concerts, lavish banquet -- also attended by Jackson -- and effusive tributes which marked Mandela's birthday last year. It emerged this week that plans to distribute funds raised during those celebrations and the past year to various charities this weekend, had been shelved. Government said "no final tally" of the money raised had been made. Mandela, who often expressed the wish to spend his last years in obscurity in his native village of Qunu in the eastern Transkei region, has jokingly expressed relief at being retired. "I am happy ... to be out of jail for the second time," the long-time political prisoner said in an interview last week.