Obamas tour Mandela's Robben Island prison cell
- 11 years ago
ROUGH CUT - NO REPORTER NARRATION
U.S. President Barack Obama and his family visited South Africa's bleak former prison of Robben Island on Sunday to pay tribute to ex-inmate Nelson Mandela, now critically ill in the hospital.
Later Obama cited the legacy of Mandela, who was imprisoned on the windswept island for most of the 27 years he spent in jail before becoming the country's first black president, in a speech at the University of Cape Town.
Current South African President Jacob Zuma was also held at the notorious jail off Cape Town's coast under the apartheid regime, which ended in 1994 with Mandela's election victory.
In sunny weather, the U.S. president flew by helicopter with his family to the island, which is surrounded by the frigid, shark-infested waters of the South Atlantic.
His party drove a short distance to the former prison's lime quarry, where Mandela and other prisoners toiled for years.
Their guide, 83-year-old former inmate and
U.S. President Barack Obama and his family visited South Africa's bleak former prison of Robben Island on Sunday to pay tribute to ex-inmate Nelson Mandela, now critically ill in the hospital.
Later Obama cited the legacy of Mandela, who was imprisoned on the windswept island for most of the 27 years he spent in jail before becoming the country's first black president, in a speech at the University of Cape Town.
Current South African President Jacob Zuma was also held at the notorious jail off Cape Town's coast under the apartheid regime, which ended in 1994 with Mandela's election victory.
In sunny weather, the U.S. president flew by helicopter with his family to the island, which is surrounded by the frigid, shark-infested waters of the South Atlantic.
His party drove a short distance to the former prison's lime quarry, where Mandela and other prisoners toiled for years.
Their guide, 83-year-old former inmate and