Former South African president Nelson Mandela has revealed that his eldest son has died of AIDS. 54 year old Makgatho Mandela had been critically ill for several weeks after being admitted to a Johannesburg hospital late last year. Mandela made the announcement of his son’s death yesterday surrounded by family members. Mandela said, “”Let us give publicity to HIV/AIDS and not hide it, because the only way of making it appear like a normal illness like TB, like cancer, is always to come out and to say somebody has died because of HIV/AIDS. And people will stop regarding it as something extraordinary, as something, as an illness that is there for people who are going to go to hell and not to heaven and I hope that as time goes on, we will realize that it is important for us to talk openly about people who die from AIDS.”