South Africa Delivers Mandela Solidarity Statue to Palestine

A 6-meter statue of Nelson Mandela, the late anti-Apartheid leader of South Africa, will soon tower over the Palestinian city of Ramallah Tuesday when the Mayor of the City of Johannesburg‚ Parks Tau‚ unveils the donation from South Africa, local media reported Tuesday.

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The anti-Israeli apartheid Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions group or BDS said Tau has already arrived in Palestine for the unveiling of the statue, which is expected to take place 4:00 p.m. local time.

In a statement, the BDS branch in South Africa quoted the former South African president who said in 1997 that: "Our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians."

“We see the statue as a symbol of friendship‚ as a symbol of demonstrating our solidarity but also hopefully as an inspiration to the people of Palestine that you indeed would be able to achieve your freedom,” Tau said in Ramallah Tuesday, according to South Africa’s Time Live website.

“We are here as the people of South Africa to say we stand in solidarity with you‚ we stand in solidarity with your struggles and we understand the difficulties that you go through ... Ultimately it is when you have experienced the real hardships of the people of Palestine that you understand the difficult situation that the people of Palestine are going through."

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The late South African president was one of the leading supporters of the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian people’s struggle against the Israeli occupation.

“The statue produced in South Africa and recently shipped to the Palestinian shores is a donation from Johannesburg to Ramallah as a symbol of solidarity with the people of Palestine amidst their ongoing struggles,” a statement by Johannesburg city said Sunday.

The donation of the statue was declared when a mission from Johannesburg visited Ramallah in November 2014.

Ramallah mayor, Musa Hadid, was quoted in the Jerusalem Post Sunday as saying: “The erection of Mandela’s sculpture in Ramallah carries a symbolic significance, since he was an international symbol of peace and a torch to people striving for freedom and liberty.”