Walter Sisulu, 90; Political Leader Helped Shape Anti-Apartheid Fight

Walter Sisulu, the South African political leader who spent more than 25 years in prison alongside Nelson Mandela and, with Mandela, helped shape the African National Congress' campaign against apartheid, died Monday. He was 90.

In a statement, Sisulu's son, Max, said his father had died in his Soweto home, in the arms of his wife of 59 years, Albertina.

A much-loved figure in South African politics, Sisulu, who would have turned 91 on May 18, was born in 1912, the year the ANC was founded. He was in many ways as important as Mandela in the struggle against South Africa's racist system, but he was less well known -- in part because his role was as a behind-the-scenes organizer, but also because he decided, because of poor health, not to seek office in South Africa's first post-apartheid government.

After Mandela was elected president in South Africa's historic April 1994 election, he frequently sought the guidance of Sisulu, who was one of his closest friends and colleagues for more than six decades.

Sisulu was always a voice for moderation, preaching the importance of a national reconciliation after apartheid was over.

"His absence has carved a void. A part of me is gone," Mandela, 84, said Monday night, in a statement to the South African Press Assn.

"Our paths first intersected in 1941. During the past 62 years, our lives have been intertwined. We shared the joy of living, and the pain. Together we shared ideas, forged common commitments. We walked side by side through the valley of death, nursing each other's bruises, holding each other up when our steps faltered. Together we savored the taste of freedom."

It was Sisulu who recruited Mandela to the ANC, a year after he joined in 1940. He saw the potential of the statuesque and handsome younger man and reached out to him -- helping Mandela enroll in law school, paying his tuition, even putting him up as a lodger in his mother's home.

The two were co-founders, along with the late Oliver Tambo, of the ANC Youth League, which favored a more militant approach to the campaign against the government.

They soon took over the ANC, with Sisulu serving as its secretary general from 1949 to 1954.

Sisulu also was a founder of the ANC's armed wing, Umkhunto we Sizwe.

Both Mandela and Sisulu were defendants in South Africa's infamous Treason Trial, a four-year trial in which 156 people were charged with high treason against the government.