AFTER 38 years of love, political struggle, prison, liberation, personal disillusionment and finally betrayal, the marriage of Nelson band Winnie Mandela ended yesterday in a courtroom.
Judge Frikkie Eloff closed the chapter on the relationship that carried Mr Mandela through 27 years in prison. His ruling came just one day after the 77 year old South African leader paraded his personal pain before the whole world over his estranged wife's infidelity and lack of intimacy.
"I grant a decree of divorce between the parties," the judge said. "The position appears to be clear that on the evidence that was not challenged the plaintiff is entitled to a divorce. His claim is unanswerable and he is entitled to the relief he seeks."
The ruling was greeted with anger by Mrs Mandela, who stormed out, and with visible relief by Mr Mandela, who smiled and shook his lawyer's hand, and deep sadness by others.
"We wanted to have a kind of fairy tale ending," lamented Archbishop Desmond Tutu. "The couple have suffered so much and now at the pinnacle of their victory, for this dissolution to happen, it's awful for them, but it's also awful for the country. . . It's so awful, awful, awful. We all seem to be voyeurs peeping into a bedroom where a husband and wife are falling out," he said.
In the midst of yesterday's hearing, Mrs Mandela suddenly and unexpectedly sacked her lawyer, Mr Ismail Semenya. He had earlier questioned Mr Mandela, who begged him not to make him disclose more painful details of the marriage relationship.
Instead, Mr Semenya tried to get Mr Mandela to paint a picture of his wife as a woman who suffered greatly while he was in prison. The President agreed that Winnie was "hounded" by the authorities but he refused to put her on a pedestal. "She was not all alone in this struggle," the President said. "There were many women in this country who suffered far more than she did." It was shortly after this that she sacked Mr Semenya and then demanded a postponement so she could hire a new advocate. Mr Mandela's lawyer, Mr Wim Trengove, laughed this off as the oldest trick in the book" to delay justice. The judge refused the request, saying that Winnie could handle her own defence.
The remaining battle, which starts today in the same courtroom, is over Winnie's claim to half of the President's estate, estimated at £15 million by some newspapers, and the question over the use of perhaps the President's greatest asset of all the Mandela name.