SOWETO - Mrs Hillary Clinton, wife of President Clinton, paid homage to young blacks killed fighting for liberation under South Africa's former white government.
Mrs Clinton and her daughter, Chelsea (17) - in Soweto at the start of a three-day visit to South Africa - watched as two schoolchildren laid a wreath at the grave of Hector Peterson, a teenager who was the first to die in Soweto township in June 1976 during massive demonstrations against white domination.
Soweto pupils rose up against a government attempt to enforce the use of the Afrikaans language for teaching in the township. Nearly 700 people died in the violence that followed - most shot by police.
Mrs Clinton told a ceremony at the monument in a suburb of Soweto, near Johannesburg, that she mourned for those youths "who did not live to see this day in this country".
"But in the faces of the children I saw this morning I hope there is the consolation that what they fought and died for has come to pass," she said.
