JOHANNESBURG (AFP) – Nelson
Mandela’s doctors have rejected
the idea of turning off the ailing
icon’s life support unless he
suffers massive organ failure, a
close family friend told AFP.

Denis Goldberg — an anti-
apartheid activist who has been
Mandela’s friend for more than
half a century — on Friday said
the issue of turning off life
support was discussed and
ultimately dismissed.

“I was told the matter had been
raised and the doctors said they
would only consider such a
situation if there was a genuine
state of organ failure,” Goldberg
said.

“Since that hasn’t occurred they
were quite prepared to go on
stabilising him until he recovers.”

The 80-year-old Goldberg was
convicted along with Mandela in
1964 for their fight against
white-minority rule.

He visited the former president in
hospital on Monday.

A court document filed by a
lawyer for Mandela’s family nine
days ago stated the 94-year-old
was “assisted in breathing by a
life support machine.”

“The Mandela family have been
advised by the medical
practitioners that his life support
machine should be switched off,”
the court filing read.

“Rather than prolonging his
suffering, the Mandela family is
exploring this option as a very
real probability.”

The document – which was
designed to press a court to
urgently settle a family row over
the remains of Mandela’s children
— also stated that Mandela was
“in a permanent vegetative
state.”

South Africa’s presidency has
stated that is not the case, but
has refused to give further
details of his condition, citing the
need to respect Mandela’s
privacy.

On the day the document was
drafted, President Jacob Zuma
abruptly cancelled a trip to
Mozambique to confer with
Mandela’s doctors amid fears the
94-year-old may be close to the
end.

Zuma, Mandela family members
and his close friends have since
reported his condition has
improved.

South African presidential
spokesman Mac Maharaj told AFP
on Friday that Zuma’s office “had
not been party” to the court
material and would not speculate
on its content.

“We did not file any document
and we are not saying that it’s
true or not true,” he said.
Earlier Goldberg said Mandela
was “clearly a very ill man, but he
was conscious and he tried to
move his mouth and eyes when I
talked to him.”

“He is definitely not
unconscious,” he added, saying
“he was aware of who I was”.
Mandela, who spent 27 years in
prison for fighting white-
minority rule and went on to lead
the process of racial
reconciliation as South Africa’s
first black president, has now
spent a month in hospital after
being admitted with a recurrent
lung infection.

South Africa’s parliament on
Friday hosted a prayer service in
a Cape Town cathedral where
Mandela was hailed as “an icon
of a truly free South Africa”.

“It is a reflective period for our
people,” said national assembly
deputy speaker NomaIndiya
Mfeketo.

“The thought of Madiba in
hospital indisposed due to illness
is harrowing. This is not what
we wish for our beloved hero.”

The ruling African National
Congress (ANC) dedicated its
annual Gauteng provincial
general council meeting in
Pretoria to Mandela.

“We want to acknowledge him
as a comrade who not only stood
for
the ANC as a servant of the
people of South Africa; he also
stood
for values of human rights and
justice universally,” said ANC
Gauteng deputy chairwoman
Gwen Ramokgopa.

The delegates, dressed in white
T-shirts bearing Mandela’s image
and the words “Long live Nelson
Mandela”, sang struggle songs
dedicated to the anti-apartheid
icon, the South African Press
Association reported.

Meanwhile leading South
Africans urged Mandela’s family
to end an increasingly acerbic
family feud over the gravesites of
three of Mandela’s children.

On Thursday Mandela’s grandson
Mandla launched a tirade at close
family members who took him to
court to force him to reinter
Mandela’s children at the revered
former South African leader’s
proposed burial ground in Qunu,
his childhood village.

Mandla accused one of his
brothers of impregnating his
wife and said others were born
out of wedlock.

The three bodies were reburied
Thursday in Qunu, but the fall-out
from the dispute continued to
reverberate.

South African Nobel peace
laureate Desmond Tutu pleaded
with Mandela’s family not to
“besmirch” the former
president’s name.

“Please, please, please may we
think not only of ourselves. It’s
like spitting in Madiba’s face,”
said Tutu in a statement, using
Mandela’s clan name.

Presidential spokesman Maharaj
also urged the family to solve the
increasingly bitter dispute
“amicably”.

“It is regrettable that there is a
dispute going on amongst family
members and we’d like that
dispute to be resolved as
amicably and as soon as
possible,” he said.

Mandela was rushed to hospital
on June