Other former and serving heads of state and government, particularly those with large security details, are known to have been encouraged not to attend to reduce logistical complications for the already challenging events.
There could also be understandable nervousness among foreign security staff after it emerged that a violent, paranoid schizophrenic with a criminal record stood just a metre from Barack Obama as a sign language interpreter as he made his speech at Tuesday's memorial service.
The details of who was and was not on the guest list for Mandela's funeral has already proved controversial after Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu initially said he had cancelled his flight to the airport nearest Qunu because he had not been invited.
After a series of protestations from government that he was welcome, Mr Tutu relented and took an early morning flight.
The funeral also appeared half empty for more than an hour, with soldiers moving in to occupy some of the empty seats.
Despite blood relatives and locals being told there was not enough space for them to attend, an hour into the service army personnel were still being drafted in to fill the empty chairs.
His niece Gloria Mkwedini, 38, the daughter of his last-surviving sister and her family of 16, was among the family members unable to attend.
"It makes us feel like outcasts," she said.
Amid the mutual backslapping taking place between leaders of African countries attending the Mandela funeral, the Prince of Wales
cut, at times, a lonely figure. The heir to the throne was relegated to a seat a number of rows back from the front position that a senior member of the Royal Family would expect to occupy on such an occasion.
The fact that the Prince was representing the former colonial power may have had something to do with his near invisibility during the event – it had been suggested he would deliver an address to the more than 4,000 guests at the funeral but in the end no speech was made.
Instead, Britain's future monarch was treated to speeches decrying the evils of colonialism in Africa, of which this country was a leading exponent. The positive role played by the modern Commonwealth was mentioned not once during the funeral service, despite South Africa being one of its key members.
The temperature of the occasion could be gauged by the fact that when the name of Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein leader, was read out as one of those attending it provoked applause from the audience.
The prince's name was greeted with indifference when it cropped up, and that was only late in the day, after batches of other names had been read out between speeches and hymns. The future King had to content himself with a trailing position behind the prime minister of St Kitts and Nevis, a Caribbean microstate. The protocol people at Buckingham Palace, to whom orders of precedence are bedtime reading, were no doubt appalled by this lax approach to international status, but there may have been more to it than simply a mistake.
David Cameron received similar low billing when he attended the main memorial event celebrating President Mandela's life in Johannesburg's World Cup stadium on Tuesday.
via Top Stories - Google News http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNFvMIpM-7tPxRoPlE0uESq2z1XxlQ&url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/nelson-mandela/10519143/Nelson-Mandela-funeral-no-Bill-Clinton-empty-seats-and-Prince-of-Wales-snubbed.html
Put the internet to work for you.
No comments:
Post a Comment