Anti-apartheid paper editor dead

LONDON, AUG. 20. Mr. Donald Woods, crusading South African anti- apartheid newspaper editor immortalised in the film `Cry freedom', died in England, his family said.

Mr. Woods (67), who had been ill with cancer for the past two years, died in hospital south of London yesterday surrounded by his wife Wendy and five children, his daughter Jane told Reuters.

``It was a shock because his condition had rapidly worsened only in the past two weeks,'' she said, adding that the former South African President, Mr. Nelson Mandela, had telephoned Mr. Woods in hospital to wish him well only a few days ago.

Mr. Woods, editor of the daily Dispatch from 1965 to 1977, himself made headlines when he drew the world's attention to the case of slain black consciousness leader Steve Biko.

Biko, aged 30, was arrested by security police in September 1977 and beaten unconscious before being driven naked and in chains about 1,200 km to the prison where he died.

After his disclosures, Mr. Woods was `banned' by the National Party government and fled to London with his family.

The film `Cry freedom', directed by Mr. Richard Attenborough, was based on the biography he wrote after he went into exile.

Since then he had written several more books and at the time of his death was raising funds for a statue of Mr. Nelson Mandela to be erected outside the South African High Commission in London's Trafalgar Square.

His daughter said this task would be continued by Mr. Attenborough, who had become a close friend.

The policemen involved in Biko's death were denied amnesty in 1999 by South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which probed apartheid-era crimes after the transition to black majority rule in 1994.

Mr. Woods last visited South Africa in May for a final reunion with his friends and former colleagues, Mr. Mandela among them.

- Reuters

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