Anti-apartheid priest Trevor Huddleston dies

LONDON -- Archbishop Trevor Huddleston, the outspoken Anglican priest who led the British campaign to end apartheid in South Africa, died yesterday, his spokesman said. He was 84.

Archbishop Huddleston died at the Community of the Resurrection in Mirfield, northern England, the headquarters of the religious order he joined in the 1930s and where he lived after his retirement.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a friend for more than 50 years, said Archbishop Huddleston "made sure apartheid got on to the world agenda and stayed there''.

He helped found Britain's Anti-Apartheid Movement in 1959 and led its campaigns for boycotts and sanctions against South Africa's white-led minority government. He was often seen among demonstrators who ran a permanent picket of the South African embassy in the 1970s and 80s.

This year he received a knighthood for his contribution to bringing down apartheid.

Archbishop Huddleston, born on June 15, 1913, was educated at a private boarding school, Lancing, and Oxford. He joined the priesthood in 1939.

He was posted to South Africa two years later where he became active in the struggle against apartheid and formed close friendships with leaders like Mr Nelson Mandela and Mr Oliver Tambo.

In 1956, he was recalled by his superiors who feared he might get expelled and he became Archbishop of the Indian Ocean.

Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, said Archbishop Huddleston "will be remembered especially for the battles he fought on behalf of the ordinary black South African''.

"He was also a pioneer in inter-faith dialogue," said Archbishop Carey.

A man of charisma, Archbishop Huddleston organised a 70th birthday party at London's Hyde Park Corner for ANC leader Mr Mandela, then still in jail -- and 250000 people showed up.

Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town Njongonkulu Ndungane said the death of Archbishop Huddleston was a great loss to all the people of South Africa ''for whom he fought so courageously during the dark years of apartheid''.

''The work he did in Sophiatown was seminal in highlighting the plight of black people in South Africa,'' he said.

The bishops of the Church of the Province of Southern Africa meeting in Caledon in the Cape gave thanks for the ministry of Archbishop Huddleston, his courage and his refusal to give in to the forces of evil which engulfed the country and region.

''We are grateful to God that he lived to see the new South Africa rise from the horrors of the past.''

In Pretoria President Mandela said Archbishop Huddleston was a pillar of wisdom, humility and sacrifice to legions of freedom fighters in the darkest moments of the struggle against apartheid.

"It is humbling for an ordinary mortal like myself to express the deep sense of loss one feels at the death of so great and venerable figure as Father Trevor Huddleston," Mr Mandela said.