African Activist Archive

This funding appeal for the International Defense and Aid Fund for Southern Africa (IDAF) reports that, in June this year, shortly before Pretoria imposed a new nationwide State of Emergency, a picture of Nelson Mandela appeared on the front page of a South African newspaper. Mandela is a potent symbol and unchallenged leader for most South Africans. The mailing says in the 1950s, IDAF raised vast sums of money needed to defend 156 people charged with treason in a trial that dragged on for an astonishing five years; Nelson Mandela was one of those charged. All 156 defendants had been involved in peaceful resistance to apartheid, and all were eventually acquitted. Mandela again facing treason charges in 1964, together with other ANC leaders captured in Rivonia near Johannesburg. Again, the defense was funded by IDAF, but this time all the defendants were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. The mailing says Pretoria has at times offered to release Mandela, but only on such conditions as that he live in a Bantustan area. The mailing says the official figure of those killed in the cycle of protest and repression that began in 1984 is approaching 2,000, and thousands of others have been detained. The mailing discusses Robben Island and Pollsmoor prison. [Note on date: The mailing mentions Mandela's 68th birthday, which was in 1968.]

African Activist Archive

"Too many have died since I went to prison."

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