FREEDOM TRIAL IN SOUTH AFRICA
Mandela Hospitalized
Three
silver-haired men sat together and recalled a court case 50 years ago that
rocketed their friend and fellow freedom fighter to fame. To one man in the
group that friend is simply "Nel." To the rest of the world he is
Nelson Mandela, Nobel Peace Prize winner, South Africa's former president, and
a man who spent 27 years in jail for a cause he told a court in 1964 that he
was prepared to die for.
Mandela,
hospitalized since June 8, remains in critical condition. A grandson, Ndaba
Mandela, said Tuesday that his grandfather is "very much alive" and
responds when spoken to, though he is on life support in the form of mechanical
ventilation. Mandela turns 95 on July 18.
Thursday
marks the 50th anniversary of an event known in South African history as the Raid
on Lilies leaf, a simple home in a Johannesburg suburb of Rivonia that served
as the nerve center of activists seeking to overturn the white racist rule of
South Africa's apartheid era. Those arrested in the raid were charged with
sabotage. Mandela had already been convicted of separate charges and was later
tried and sentenced with those from Lilies leaf.
Goldberg
retains the liberal feistiness that would have been required for a white man
fighting for freedom for his black countrymen in the 1960s. He is 15 years
younger than Mandela, and one of the select few family members and friends who
have visited Mandela since he was hospitalized June 8. Last week he said, Denis
Goldberg, 80, was one of the grey-haired men recalling the raid at a memorial
for the event Monday evening. South Africa's apartheid government, playing Cold
War politics to win U.S. support, labeled those arrested as terrorists and
communists.
“Mandela was
conscious and responsive which came in contradiction to papers filed in a
Mandela family court case that described the former president as being in a
vegetative state. The trial allowed those prosecuted in what became known as
the Rivonia Trial to get their anti-apartheid views out to the public. Mandela was
a thinking man, not a hot-headed leader."
Goldberg and
two contemporaries were invited to see Mandela by Graca Michel, Mandela's wife.
“Graca sat the three down and told them what
she thought they should know about Mandela's condition. He told Machel he would
share the information about Mandela with the world.
"I fought for
democracy and I'm going to speak out."
Graca Machel said,
'Yes, do that,'"
“It's sad to see an old friend — once a strong
physical presence — lying in bed with a tube down his throat. Mandela never
addressed me by name; for me he's Nel and I'm boy."
Bob Hepple, who was arrested at Lilies leaf
but fled to England and did not face trial said,
"It was
a failed revolution at the time, but it was the spark that lit the flame. It's
great having a vision of freedom but you have to act to get freedom. It doesn't
fall from the trees."
Mandela had
previously traveled to Algeria to receive training for guerrilla warfare —
violence that he never personally carried out but a strategy that he determined
should be pursued by the African National Congress. Writings discovered by the
apartheid police in the Lilies leaf raid showed that Mandela had carefully
pondered and endorsed the use of violence against apartheid.
To be continued…
DR. KARL WALLACE D.D.S.
