European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - February 12, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Monday february 12, 1990 the stars and stripes Page 3 Mandela emerging from legend Washington up Nelson to Lih Lahla Mandela a powerful Symbol of opposition to apartheid and. Until Sun Aone of the world s most celebrated political prisoners has been a faceless voiceless legend to Black South africans for More than 27 years. Mandela s Public life ended aug. S. 1962. When he was imprisoned and later sentenced to a life term at the end of a landmark trial with eight other senior leaders of the african National Congress. They were accused of plotting the violent overthrow of the minority while govern ment. The sentence allowing no remission for such politically inspired crimes silenced the eloquent voice of a patient lawyer who turned his followers to Vio Lent underground opposition after dec Ades of peaceful protest had left apart Heid unchanged. Until his release sunday an entire generation of Black South africans had neither heard the 71-year-old Mandela speak nor seen him. Relying since last year on a color portrait sketched from recollections of his visitors and decades old photographs. With his release from Victor Var Star prison Northeast of Cape town he can now superimpose a human figure on that legend. But. Even though his face was a blur to Youthful revolutionaries of violent Black resistance in 1976. 1980. 1984 and 1985, and the alternative non violent Gandhi style tactics of 1989. His name Wasa ban Ner. Mandela was Horn july 18. 1918. Into traditional Themba tribal royally near la tata. A town in the Rural Black Home land of the Transki on the Indian Ocean. When Mandela was 12. His father a headman with four wives died and the boy was raised by his Cousin the acting Paramount chief. Although born a Prince and future chief. Mandela bucked authority Early. He rejected his right to Royal chieftain ship living up to his traditional xhosa tribal name Koli Ulahla. Which Means stirring up  after graduation from a methodist boarding school. Mandela enrolled in i9j8 at fort Hare a segregated Rural col lege where his interests turned to Stu Dent polities. He began a lifelong Friend ship with activist colleague Oliver Tambo. Presently the Anc president in exile. Expelled from fort Hare in 1940 for participation in a strike both Tambo and Mandela went to Johannesburg. Mandela who avoided an arranged Tri bal marriage in the Transki. Found work on the mines As a Security guard. Black rights campaigner Walter Sisulu later to become the Anc Secretary general befriended Mandela and found him work in a Law firm. In 1941. He completed a Bachelor of arts Degrace b correspondence and then proceeded with his Law studies at Johan Nesburg s University of the Witwatersrand. In his spare time he trained As a Boxer. In 1944. He married Sisulu s Cousin. Eveline and they had three children before their separation in 1955. With the help of Sisulu. Mandela and Tambo teamed up to launch a youth Wing of the Anc. Which effectively took Over the movement s leadership in 1949 and instituted a pro Gram calling for strikes civil disobedience and Boycotts to pressure the apartheid government. Having orchestrated a fundamental change in tactics. Mandela and Tambo were elected to the Anc s executive body and Sisulu was named Secretary. Appointed Leader of a National civil disobedience Campaign. Mandela and others broke curfew Laws on june 26, 1952, in their first act of Defiance. For that Mandela served his first Brief Pris on term. Six months later for alleged violations of the suppression of communism act Mandela received a two year suspended sentence and a Banning maintained by authorities for the next nine years. The Banning restricted Mandela to Johannes Burg City limits and barred him from Public gatherings. On the first renewal of his Banning order Mandela resigned officially from the Anc leadership yet continued to Lead the movement covertly preparing it to operate underground when it became necessary. At the same time. Mandela set up an attorney s practice in downtown Johan Nesburg with Tambo. Forming the first Black Law partnership in the country. Responding to Anc moves to create a Post apartheid society including the adoption in 1956 of the non racial free Dom charter declaring one person one vote. Mandela was arrested in december 1956 and charged with High treason with 155 other political leaders. It took a five year trial to acquit them. Two years into the trial. Mandela mar ried his second wife. Winnie Tadiki Cla. An aggressive medical worker 18 years his Junior with whom he has two Daugh ters. In 1959. During the trial the Anc organized a Campaign against Laws requiring Blacks to carry identification the so called pass Laws. But the breakaway pan africanist Congress took the limelight by calling for mass protests on the Issue leading to a crisis that would drive the Anc into forming a military Wing. On March 21, i960, a protest against pass Laws led to a confrontation with Ner Vous police officers at a police station in the township of Sharleville South of Johannesburg. At least 69 Black protesters died in police gunfire and scores were wounded. The government responded by invoking a state of emergency Banning the Anc and the Pac and detaining thou Sands of activists. Among them was Mandela. Both organizations remained outlawed until feb. 2 this year when president Fri Crik do Klerk lifted their ban and announced other reforms including that Mandela would soon be re leased. From april 1961. After his acquittal in the treason trial. Mandela went under ground where his political philosophy continued to undergo a Radical transformation. On dec. 16, 1961, the outlawed Anc launched its military Wing. Ump Honto we size Spear of the nation with a strategy of bombing government and military targets. Eight months later. Mandela was Cap tured convicted for incitement and Ille Gally leaving the country and jailed for live years. On june ii 1963, police raided a i Felt i was in the presence not of a guerrilla fighter or racial ideologue but of a head of  Samuel dash farm near Johannesburg uncovering the Anc s underground Headquarters and arresting several lop activists to fill the docket alongside Mandela in the nation s most sensational political trial. On june 12. 1964. Mandela. Sisulu and six others were sentenced to life imprisonment. In the trial Mandela gave a four hour address arguing that govern ment imposed restrictions had left Blacks no alternative but to engage in an armed struggle. It was Only when All else had failed when All channels of peaceful protest had been barred to us. That the decision was made to embark on violent forms of protest Mandela said. The govern a photos Mandela in his Johannesburg Ian office in 1952 left and in 1961 above. Intent had left us with no other  Mandela held True to his conviction that violence had been spawned by the stale and refused an offer of release in l 85 in Exchange for renouncing Vio Lence. Few visitors outside family members gained Access to Mandela until his trans Fer from Robben Island offshore from Cape town in 1982 to the port City s polls Moor prison. At the same Lime an International free Mandela Campaign began to Lake shape. Virtually every visitor marvelled Al the dignified 6-Footcr More easily taken for statesman than prisoner physically Well mentally keen and Well informed. Throughout our meeting. I Felt i was in the presence not of a guerrilla fighter or racial ideologue. But of a Ivad of  reflected Samuel dash after. Visit ing from Georgetown University in 1985. In december 1988.  was transferred to a ranch style House on a prison farm outside Cape town after recovering from a bout of tuberculosis. His Contact with the outside world began to grow dramatically As speculation on his release intensified and talks increased with the government on Possi ble negotiations to end the country s racial conflict. Still Little was Ever known about the personal Mandela who remained accessible Only to his wife youngest daughter Zendzi and close friends during jail vis its. But. In july 1989. Coinciding with his 70th birthday anti apartheid lawyer and family Friend Fatima Meer published an autobiography based largely on Mande la s letters to relatives and friends. They showed a concerned and doting father worrying that Zendzi had abandoned poetry writing cautioning her against going Bare breasted at a traditional gathering in Swaziland and urging her to keep up her studies. Mandela wrote to his wife of his dreams of revisiting places remembered from his past old friends and the Rural Countryside of his childhood