European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - November 12, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 16 the stars and stripes tuesday. November 12, 1965 Nelso Mandela Symbol of Black resistance and Hope South african politics Black anti apartheid groups o unt Tod democratic front the largest anti apartheid coalition claims More than 2 million followers in 600 affiliated groups in Black townships. The uhf accepts White participation in the fight for Mack majority rights but demands unconditional negotiations Tor Power or St a organization of the Zulu Tribo it is headed by Qatsha but Hetero. Chief minister of the Kwa Zufu Homeland. He is an outspoken foe of apartheid but has been criticized by More militant activists who oppose the Homeland system which denies Blacks rights in South Africa. Q african National Conor banned in i960, the Anc went underground and began a sabotage Campaign. As an exited guerrilla group it is trying to make the Black townships the government says uhf is a front for Anc. Whose Leader Nelson Mande la is serving a life prison term on charges of plotting sabotage. A tartan people Organiza Tion with the motto Black Man my ill Transvaal Swett j Jovian Nestor South Africa of be free,./, i state \ it Tanmay you Are on your own its founder the late Steve Bito. Rejected White help in the liberation struggle. The group accepts a White presence in South Africa but not As part of he government. Up a am Canter co grew an offshoot of Anc Trio outlawed group rejects Whites As indigenous to Africa and believes in Africa for h wants Whites neither in the struggle for wad. Majority Rule nor in the government Smogo to Toutt on he sane Chicago tur no Laporti Byala Cowell new York times Percy Oboza remembers the Days of them goes like this in the Early 1960s, the Man was on the run from the police and Tobosa a Young Blac reporter was following the Story. He would disappear and then turn up somewhere at a Public Telephone and Call in with a statement. Of course the police would Trace the Call but by that time he was Long gone. A had our own Oboza is now a prominent newspaper editor. The Man he was talking about is Nelson Mandela the imprisoned Leader of the african National Congress whose Days As the Pimpernel ran out in August 1962, when he was arrested for sabotage because of his role in the militant Wing of the Congress. He has been in prison Ever since and has become through incarceration and steadfast Defiance from within the prison Walls. South Africa s leading Black hero the Man according to a recent newspaper Survey whom 90 percent of the nation s Black people want unconditionally freed. I think Oboza said in an interview that he symbolizes Black determination to be try my Bodum from a Black nationalist Point of View is evident. Polls Moor prison outside Cape town where Mandela is held represents the system against which he rebels. His rebellion from within is the ambiguous Emblem of Defiance in a society where the rulers seem to Call the shots. The Enigma however seems to be that invisible and unheard removed by White authority from Black political activism Mandela has captured he spirit and Devotion not Only of those who knew him at the time of his incarceration but also of those who have in the last year of upheaval assumed the Custodianship of Black resistance the teen agers who were not yet born when he was jailed. Ii Mandela who is 67, was released tomorrow said Michael Morake 18, in an interview in Soweto Johannesburg s sprawling Black satellite i will probably pass him by because i would not recognize but it is his ideas and commitment to the struggle that make even us youths regard him As our Leader he sold. Anyhow he added i do not worry about not knowing what Mandela looks like right now because the Day has come closer where i will see him with my own it the system does not free him he said the people s revolution will set him tree. And that Day is not far Mandli la Tan As an inspiration whose physical presence Means less than his message and example. He is the Symbol of our struggle said my Wake a Usheka 19, a High school student. To me he is like Jesus How Many people would rather stay in jail than be free at the Cost of their integrity he said for the struggle to go on he said we do not need Mandela to be around. We the youths will do the Job the Way our Leader would have wanted. And he knows that we Are carrying on from where he left off 23 years Mandela was jailed and was supposed to become thus a no person banished initially to the harshness of Robben Island off Cape town. But the myth was stronger than the prison Walls and it grew across the generations. There were other heroes but Many have been detained or otherwise neutralized. Mandela filled the emptiness at the heart of Black yearning for leadership. Who Hen i h7 Mandela was born in 1918, the eldest son of a chief of the Mtembu people. Inheriting a Mantle of Royal self Confidence that defied White regulation of Blacks to second class status. He stifled Law at South Africa s fort Hare University an Academy whose alumni include Robert Mugabe now prime minister of Zimbabwe. As in Mugabe s Case the University seems to have honed political views. Mandela is said to have been expelled from it for organizing a student strike. In Johannesburg he and Oliver Tambo now the exiled Leader of the african National Congress formed a Law practice. In 1944 Mandela joined the Congress then far less demanding of White concessions than it is today end played a leading role in its nonviolent campaigns against apartheid in the 1950s. Those actions caused him to be detained along with 155 others in 1957, in a four year treason trial that ended. In 1961, with All the defendants being acquitted. That was the Start of the Pimpernel whose credentials we strengthened Oboza said by the fact that Mandela never chose self exile to secure comfortable dissent. H we thl urn Loo that a great change came Over Black resistance in South Africa on March 21, 1960, the police shot dead 69 Black protesters in Sharleville a Black township South of Johannesburg and. In the Wake of the massacre leaders such As Mandela decided to turn to violence. Mandela was a Central figure in the formation of us Shonto we Salzwe the Spear of the nation the military Wing of the african National Congress and he became its first commander. On one of his trips outside South Africa he was said to have visited Algeria to organize training bases and to have undergone training. The name of us Shonto we Salzwe is feted still in the songs that Young Blacks sing at the graveside of slain township activists. In August 1962 the authorities caught up with Mandela and after the leadership of us Shonto we stave was rounded up put him on trial for sabotage. His final address to the court that jailed him for life is burned into the soul of Black resistance. There comes a time As it came in my Hie he said when a Man is denied the right to live a Normal life when he can Only live the life of an outlaw because the government has so decreed to use the Law to impose a state of out awry upon him. I was driven to this situation and i do not regret having taken the decisions that i did earlier when Mandela launched violent resistance to White Rule a pamphlet was circulated by his organization saying the Choice is not ours it has been made by the nationalist government which has rejected every peaceable demand by the people for rights and at this trial Mandela talked of the Ideal of a democratic and free society in which All persons live together in Harmony and with equal it is an Ideal which i Hope to live for and to achieve he said. But if need be an Ideal for which i am prepared to Mandela is visited regularly Only by his immediate family. This year however the authorities have permitted some outsiders to see him. He is said lord Bethell a British peer and member of the european parliament who saw Mandela in january a six loot tall lean figure with silvering hair an impeccable Olive Green shirt and Well creased naw Blue i am in Good health Mandela said at the time itis not True that i have cancer. It is not True that i have had a toe amputated. I get up at 3 30 . Every morning do two hours of physical exercise work up a Good sweat. Then i read and study during the h Zhe e Terence to exorcise does not Surprise Oboza. H Mandela had not become a politician he said he ?becomeb8reatblnl8te new what not discovered jogging he had Oboza said
