Johannesburg: A British newspaper interview
that quotes Nelson Mandela's ex-wife bitterly criticizing the
92-year-old anti-apartheid icon as having "let us down"
prompted outrage on Wednesday in South Africa.
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela also said she could not forgive
Mandela for accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 alongside
FW De Klerk, the white president who released him and went on
to participate in negotiations that ended apartheid, according
to yesterday's Evening Standard.
"He agreed to a bad deal for the blacks. Economically, we
are still on the outside. The economy is very much 'white.' It
has a few token blacks, but so many who gave their life in the
struggle have died unrewarded," Madikizela-Mandela is quoted
as saying.
The Star newspaper in Johannesburg accused
Madikizela-Mandela of unleashing a "rant."
The governing African National Congress said it would not
comment until its leaders could discuss the article with
Madikizela-Mandela, who was traveling abroad on Wednesday.
Mandela is revered by blacks and whites in South Africa,
but is not above criticism. The most common are complaints
that he devoted too much time during his 1994-99 presidency to
seeking reconciliation with whites and too little to uplifting
blacks mired in poverty by apartheid.
PTI
First Published: Thursday, March 11, 2010, 00:05