African National Congress Archives

BREAKING THE CHAINS

By michael o. allenHomepage, New York Daily News, South Africa: The Freedom VoteNo Comments

By GENE MUSTAIN and MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writers | Sunday, April 3, 1994

JOHANNESBURG—Against a backdrop of hope and fear, a nation’s epic march toward democracy has entered a bloody home stretch.

The people of South Africa—including, for the first time, the majority black population—will go to the polls later this month and alter the course of their bitter history.

They will elect a new national government and officially close the door on apartheid—the code of racist law by which some 5.6 million whites kept 24 million blacks and others of mixed race in symbolic chains for nearly half a century.

“It’s a liberation election that finally puts the beast of apartheid in the grave,” said Larry Shore, a Hunter College professor who, like many white activist South Africans, left the country long ago out of fear or disgust.

May 11, 2009

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TAKE NOTE, AMERICANS_Lessons from Across the Sea

By michael o. allenHomepage, New York Daily News, South Africa: The Freedom VoteNo Comments

By MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer | Sunday, April 3, 1994

Saraan Ajaye did not even know South Africa was a country until she took a human rights course a year ago.

Ajaye, a senior at the Bronx alternative high school Schomburg Satelite Academy, now sees the country’s gallop to democracy after three centuries of oppression as a civics lesson.

Never take your vote for granted, she said, pointing out how low turnout of African-American and Latino voters affected the outcome of the recent mayoral election. “As soon as I turned 18, I registered to vote,” she added.

May 10, 2009

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UNEASY CALM IN EYE OF S. AFRICA STORM

By michael o. allenHomepage, New York Daily News, South Africa: The Freedom VoteNo Comments

By GENE MUSTAIN and MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writers | Sunday, April 3, 1994

JOHANNESBURG—The epicenter of the violence that rattled this city last week remained a place of frayed nerves and bullet-riddled glass yesterday.

Outside the headquarters of the African National Congress Party, a security guard quickly confronted two visitors who stepped beneath the red and white tape strung chest high along the sidewalk.

Seemingly out of nowhere a car with three men wearing sunglasses and looks of suspicion pulled up to the curb.

Once convinced the visitors came in peace, the guard relaxed enough to talk about the violent moments that led late last week to a war-like state of emergency being declared in the Natal province—the Zulu heartland.

“The shooting here lasted only five minutes,” he said, standing beside the display window commemorating the upcoming all-race elections.

“Over there,” he added, pointing across Plein St., to a 12-story apartment building. “Snipers started firing. And if there’s trouble again, I will know what to do.”

May 9, 2009

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CAULDRON OF CHANGE

By michael o. allenHomepage, New York Daily News, South Africa: The Freedom VoteNo Comments

Text: MICHAEL O. ALLEN; Maps & Design: JIM WILLIS | Sunday, April 3, 1994

HISTORY’S LESSONS

South Africa, as it enters a world made uncertain by the end of apartheid, should look to the post-independence experiences of Namibia and Zimbabwe.

The same fears being raised today about South Africa’s stumble to democracy were raised in Zimbabwe leading up to its independence from Britain in 1980. and in Namibia a decade later when it emerged from under the thumb of South Africa.

A quick answer—if Namibia and Zimbabwe are guides—is that the more things change, the more they stay the same. The liberation fighters who took power retain firm control in both nations. Power has not made blacks wealthier, however. In both instances, they are as poor today as they ever were under white domination.

Whites in both situations, retain economic power and live as well as they ever have.

Namibia, though its blacks remain dreadfully poor, is peaceful today and is much forgotten by the rest of the world.

Zimbabwe, after a brief but violent aftermath to its independence, is poised for its third election next year. It has the most vigorous press in Africa, a stable, though not vibrant, economy and a fairly content white population.

1. IN TRANSITION

The multi-racial Transitional Executive Council shares broad governing powers with South Africa’s ruling National Party.

May 8, 2009

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MANDELA—BORN TO RULE

By michael o. allenHomepage, New York Daily News, South Africa: The Freedom VoteNo Comments

By GENE MUSTAIN and MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writers | Sunday, April 3, 1994

JOHANNESBURG—He carries himself like he was born to power—and he was, 75 years ago, in a hut at the bottom of the African continent.

His family ran the village; a cousin, with whom he lived while a teen, was chief of the surrounding region. Under a stand of eucalyptus trees that was the tribal courthouse, they prepared Nelson Mandela to follow in their footsteps.

“The genesis of my ideas is under these trees,” said the Old Man, as he is known among his followers, during a homecoming last month.

May 7, 2009

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Blacks live in N.Y.—that’s no put on

By michael o. allenHomepage, New York Daily News, South Africa: The Freedom VoteNo Comments

By GENE MUSTAIN and MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writers | Monday, April 11, 1994

JOHANNESBURG—This is a time and a city for keeping a journal:

Yes, Princess, New York is in the U.S.A. and black people live there.

Most black South Africans have had little contact with American blacks, so little that Princess Mgwebi, a security officer at a hospital in the black township of Soweto, was astonished last week when a black reporter from New York introduced himself.

“I didn’t know there are black people in New York,” she said.

Told that indeed black people live in New York and all over the U.S., her jaw dropped. “New York is part of the United States?” she said, wrinkling the vertical facial scars that indicated she was of the Ndebele tribe.

“Yes, and many blacks live there.

“Well,” Mgwebi said, not entirely sure she was not being put on. “I know there are blacks in the United States because that is where Michael Jackson is from, and I know he is black.” Read More

May 2, 2009

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Deal to Bring Zulus into Election Nears

By michael o. allenHomepage, New York Daily News, South Africa: The Freedom VoteNo Comments

By MICHAEL O. ALLEN and GENE MUSTAIN, Daily News Staff Writers | Tuesday, April 19, 1994

JOHANNESBURG—South African leaders appear to be the on the brink of a breakthrough agreement that would bring the Inkatha Freedom Party into next week’s historic election.

During talks in Pretoria involving Inkatha leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi, President F. W. de Klerk and African National Congress officials, Buthelezi dropped his demand for an election delay, a government source said. The Zulu leader conceded that a postponement was impossible because of opposition from the ANC and government.

Buthelezi and de Klerk were to discuss the proposal today with ANC leader Nelson Mandela.

April 29, 2009

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S. AFRICA IS EYING THE PRIZE

By michael o. allenHomepage, New York Daily News, South Africa: The Freedom VoteNo Comments

By MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer | Sunday, April 24, 1994

SOWETO—With rousing gusto, Nelson Mandela and some 60,000 frenzied supporters celebrated the approaching end of a bitter journey yesterday here in the place where their freedom quest began nearly 20 years ago.

They did the toyi-toyi, the dance of celebration. They sang songs, waved placards, set off fireworks and hoisted a coffin bearing the words, “Farewell Apartheid.”

April 26, 2009

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Face-off in S. Africa_Mandela, de Klerk Share Debate Stage

By michael o. allenHomepage, New York Daily News, South Africa: The Freedom VoteNo Comments

By GENE MUSTAIN and MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writers | Friday, April 15, 1994

DURBAN, South Africa—In what was unimaginable just four years ago, a black man and a white man seeking to lead this country into democracy appeared on the same stage last night and asked South Africans for color-blind support.

The two candidates—Nobel Prize winners Nelson Mandela and President F.W. de Klerk—went at each other like the clubhouse pros they are, but at the end of this nation’s first legitimate presidential debate, they shook hand and appealed for national conciliation.

“I am proud to hold your hand—for us to go forward together,” Mandela, leader of the African National Congress Party, told de Klerk. “Let us work together to end division and suspicion . . . Let us work together for reconciliation and nation-building.”

“The whole world is waiting for us to succeed,” said de Klerk, leader of the National Party.

April 24, 2009

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CASTING OUT APARTHEID: White Rule Dying Amid Ballots

By michael o. allenHomepage, New York Daily News, South Africa: The Freedom VoteNo Comments

By MICHAEL O. ALLEN and GENE MUSTAIN, Daily News Staff Writers | Wednesday, April 27, 1994

JOHANNESBURG—Filled with indescribable emotions, South Africa’s liberation hero, Nelson Mandela, will vote today for the first time in his remarkable life.

Mandela, the former political prisoner poised to become the first president of the new South Africa, is set to vote in a school founded by one of the men who preceded him as leader of the once-banned African National Congress.

“There are certain feelings one cannot express in words. . . . What I feel is beyond words,” he said yesterday while meeting with a world press corps here to witness the death and rebirth of a nation.

April 22, 2009

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