The Black Pimpernel
Nelson Mandela went underground to plan the May 29, 1961 stay-at-home protest. He was dubbed the Black Pimpernel as the police were unable to track him down, even though his statements were published in the press:
“My most frequent disguise was as a chauffeur, a chef, or a ‘garden boy.’ I would wear the blue overalls of the field-worker and often wore round, rimless glasses….”
While underground, he was able to form an armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC). It was named Umkhonto we Sizwe (The Spear of the Nation) or MK. On June, 1961, the press carried his release:
“I am informed that a warrant for my arrest has been issued… I will not leave South Africa, nor will I surrender. Only through hardship, sacrifice and militant action can freedom be won. The struggle is my life….”
African Tour and Support
The ANC was invited to attend a pan-African conference in Addis Ababa in February, 1962. Oliver had established ANC offices in Ghana, England, Egypt, and Tanganyika, and contacts in other European states. Mandela narrated the oppression of his people before the conference presided over by Emperor Haile Selassie. From the Bulhoek massacre in 1921,
“when army and police killed 183 unarmed peasants, to Sharpeville 40 years later, when 69 unarmed African demonstrators were killed by the police and about 400 wounded.”
He thanked in particular Ghana, Nigeria, and Tanganyika,
“who spearheaded the successful drive to oust South Africa from British Commonwealth.”
Treason Trial – Robben Island I
Having briefed Chief Luthuli on his trip outside and need for ANC “to take the lead among the Congress Alliance and make statements on its own concerning affairs that affected Africans”, he left Durban and was arrested on his way to Johannesburg. He was charged with inciting African workers to strike and travelling without valid documents.
“The state clearly did not have enough evidence to link me with Umkhonto we Sizwe”
which would have attracted a charge of treason. He was sentenced three years for inciting people to strike and two years for leaving the country without a passport.
Rivonia Trial – Robben Island II
The police had raided Liliesleaf Farm (where ANC operated underground) on July 11, 1963 and saw, among others, a document:
“Operation Mayibuye, a plan for guerrilla warfare in South Africa.” “In one fell swoop, the police had captured the entire High Command of Umkhonto we Sizwe. Everyone was detained under the new Ninety-Day Detention Law… We were all charged with sabotage.”
He had only served nine months of his initial five-year sentence.
It was in the course of the Rivonia Trial, on Monday, 20th April, 1964 that he made his famous statement:
”During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
Question Mark
Does the current leadership of South Africa cherish
“the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities”
?
Overtures to Mandela
Mandela continued to get “feelers” from government but would not budge. Pressure at home and heat abroad, President P.W. Botha on January 1, 1985 in a debate in parliament offered Mandela and his comrades freedom if they
“unconditionally rejected violence as a political instrument… It is therefore not the South African government which now stands in the way of Mr. Mandela’s freedom. It is he himself.”
He wrote Foreign Minister Pik Botha to reject the conditions for his release. On February 10, 1985, Mandela’s public response was read at a UDF rally in Soweto’s Jabulani Stadium by his daughter Zindzi (even though he gave the response to Winnie and his lawyer Ismail Ayob in prison):
“…I cannot sell my birthright, nor am I prepared to sell the birthright of the people to be free… Only free men can negotiate… I cannot and will not give any undertaking at a time when I and you, the people, are not free. Your freedom and mine cannot be separated. I will return.”
Melancholy
Mandela visited his mother’s grave, which was not different from others in Qunu, in April, 1990. (Mandela had walked out of Victor Verster on February 11, 1990 after 27 years behind bars.) That triggered some pangs of regrets, and this reviewer was emotionally aroused. Wrote the freedom warrior on page 580,
“I find it difficult to describe my feelings: I felt regret that I had been unable to be with her when she died, remorse that I had not been able to look after her properly during her life, and a longing for what might have been had I chosen to live my life differently…”
I could picture Mandela’s mother die an unhappy woman after years of forlorn hope, and tears stood on my eyes at this point in the book. But then I realised that there’s always a price to pay by freedom fighters, their intimate family members or loved ones always the first victims of such choices…
Mandela Elected ANC’s President
Mandela was elected president of ANC unopposed at the July 1991 annual conference, the first in South Africa in 30 years. Cyril Ramaphosa (the current president) was elected secretary-general. In the meanwhile, the National Party opened its doors to non-whites while ANC began transformation from
“an illegal underground liberation movement to a legal mass political movement.”
Meanwhile, the macabre attacks against ANC by Inkatha continued (it was now blacks killing blacks in horrifying manner) in the months leading to the first non-racial elections in April 1994, but this time de Klerk and ANC had chosen an irreversible course as far as the landmark election was concerned. It strikes one that Inkatha knew its rival, ANC, was heading for victory and would produce the president. Through violence and subterfuge, it wanted to wring out as much autonomy as possible for KwaZulu.
Separation from Winnie
At a press conference on April 13, 1992, Mandela announced his separation from Comrade Nomzamo Winnie Mandela due to personal differences. Unstable personal life seems to be the destiny of freedom fighters. There is little room left for the family.
“That has always been my greatest regret, and the most painful aspect of the choice I made,”
wrote Mandela.
Oliver Dies, Chris Hani Murdered
On April 10, 1993, Chris Hani, secretary-general of SACP, former chief of staff of MK, “and one of the most popular figures in the ANC” was shot at point-blank range by a white supremacist who preferred the country descend into civil war to majority rule by peaceful means. It was Mandela that addressed the nation on SABC to calm nerves rather than the government. Oliver Tambo died two weeks later, and was accorded a state burial by ANC. Mandela gave tribute
“to the man who kept the ANC alive during its years of exile.”
Nobel Peace Prize
In the meanwhile, Mandela won the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with Mr de Klerk in 1993. Unlike other Western governments, Norway and Sweden supported the liberation fight of the ANC in the 50s and 60s through
“scholarships and money for legal defense and humanitarian aid for political prisoners.”
(They offered support for democracy fighters in Nigeria during the Abacha dictatorship. I should like to study what makes these two countries tick.)
Mandela Elected President
On June 3, 1993, after months of negotiations at the World Trade Centre, the first non-racial, one-person-one-vote election was slated for April 27, 1994. A constituent assembly would write a new constitution and serve as parliament. Proportional representation would be a feature of the poll. Cabinet would be composed of parties winning more than five per cent of votes and “national elections would not hold until 1999 so that the government of national unity would serve 5 (five) years.”
On April 17, de Klerk and Mandela had an intense television debate to appeal to voters. Mandela voted in Inanda near the grave of John Dube, the first president of ANC on April 27, the very first in his life. ANC polled 62.6%, which qualified it for 252 seats out of 400!
He was inaugurated on May 10, 1994 as president, Thabo Mbeki as first deputy president and Mr de Klerk as second deputy president…
