Mandela: The Authorised Biography (ISBN 0-00-638845-0) is a study of
Nelson MandelaNelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...
, the former
President of South AfricaThe President of the Republic of South Africa is the head of state and head of government under South Africa's Constitution. From 1961 to 1994, the head of state was called the State President....
, by the late journalist
Anthony SampsonAnthony Terrell Seward Sampson was a British writer and journalist. He was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford and served with the Royal Navy from 1944-47. During the 1950s he edited the magazine Drum in Johannesburg, South Africa...
.
Mandela's autobiography,
Long Walk to FreedomLong Walk to Freedom is an autobiographical work written by Nelson Mandela, and published in 1995 by Little Brown & Co. The book profiles his early life, coming of age, education and 27 years in prison. Mandela was once regarded as a terrorist but he is now regarded as uncontroversial...
, revealed little of certain major episodes in Mandela's life. Mandela was once regarded as a terrorist but he is now regarded as uncontroversial. Sampson's book was one of the first to examine such issues as Winnie Mandela's crimes, and
State PresidentState President, or Staatspresident in Afrikaans, was the title of South Africa's head of state from 1961 to 1994. The office was established when the country became a republic in 1961, and Queen Elizabeth II ceased to be head of state...
Frederik Willem de KlerkFrederik Willem de Klerk , often known as F. W. de Klerk, is the former seventh and last State President of apartheid-era South Africa, serving from September 1989 to May 1994...
's suspected attempts to use the security forces to derail peace talks.
De Klerk and the Third Force
Sampson said that de Klerk had exacerbated the violence in several ways. De Klerk was reportedly ignoring the violence of the Zulu-nationalist
Inkatha Freedom PartyThe Inkatha Freedom Party is a political party in South Africa. Since its founding, it has been led by Mangosuthu Buthelezi. It is currently the fourth largest party in the National Assembly of South Africa.-History:...
(IFP) when directed against
ANCThe African National Congress is South Africa's governing Africanist political party, supported by its tripartite alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party , since the establishment of non-racial democracy in April 1994. It defines itself as a...
(and vice versa), in the hope of splitting anti-apartheid forces. De Klerk also permitted Inkatha supporters to carry "traditional weapons" in their rallies, with which they caused much injury. Sampson cited an occasion where the ANC tipped off the government that IFP was planning a violent protest: the police did nothing, and thirty people were killed.
Mandela had himself made these criticisms in
Long Walk to FreedomLong Walk to Freedom is an autobiographical work written by Nelson Mandela, and published in 1995 by Little Brown & Co. The book profiles his early life, coming of age, education and 27 years in prison. Mandela was once regarded as a terrorist but he is now regarded as uncontroversial...
, but Sampson also broached new topics. Sampson accused de Klerk of permitting his police and defence ministers to sponsor both Inkatha and secret pro-apartheid organisations which terrorised opposition movements, the
Third ForceThe "Third Force" was a term used by leaders of the ANC during the late 1980s and early 1990s to refer to an unknown group believed to be responsible for a surge in violence in KwaZulu-Natal, and townships around and south of the Witwatersrand ....
. In 1991 de Klerk demoted those ministers,
Adriaan VlokAdriaan Johannes Vlok was Minister of Law and Order in South Africa from 1986 to 1991 in the final years of the apartheid era...
and
Magnus MalanGeneral Magnus André De Merindol Malan was the Minister of Defence , Chief of the South African Defence Force and Chief of the South African Army.-Early life:...
respectively, and began an inquiry which Sampson described as a whitewash conducted by interested parties. De Klerk denied this, and said that he had been unable to restrain the third force, even though he wanted to. In a 2004 interview, de Klerk said that his security forces had undermined him by conducting "undercover activities [...] in conflict with the policies which we were trying to advance". He said that the ANC also contained extremist and provocative elements.
James Gregory and Goodbye Bafana
Sampson's biography also alleged that one of Mandela's
Robben IslandRobben Island is an island in Table Bay, 6.9 km west of the coast of Bloubergstrand, Cape Town, South Africa. The name is Dutch for "seal island". Robben Island is roughly oval in shape, 3.3 km long north-south, and 1.9 km wide, with an area of 5.07 km². It is flat and only a...
warders, a Warrant Officer called
James GregoryJames Gregory was the censor officer and prison guard of Nelson Mandela for many years of his captivity.Gregory wrote the book Goodbye Bafana: Nelson Mandela, My Prisoner, My Friend, on which the 2007 film Goodbye Bafana was based.In his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela mentions...
, pretended to have been Mandela's friend in order to make money. According to Sampson, the close relationship depicted in Gregory's book,
Goodbye BafanaGoodbye Bafana, also released under the name The Color of Freedom, is a 2007 drama film, about the relationship between Nelson Mandela and James Gregory , his censor officer and prison guard, based on Gregory's book Goodbye Bafana: Nelson Mandela, My Prisoner, My Friend.Bafana means 'boys'...
, was a fabrication, and in reality Gregory rarely spoke to Mandela. Gregory censored the letters sent to the future president and thus discovered the details of Mandela's personal life, which he sold in
Goodbye Bafana. Mandela considered suing Gregory, but refrained from doing so when the Prison Department distanced itself from Gregory's book. Sampson also said that other warders, specifically
Christo BrandChristo Brand was a prison guard who was one of several that were responsible for guarding Nelson Mandela. He came to Robben Island, where Mandela was held, in 1978 when he was 18 years old. He was then transferred along with Mandela to Pollsmoor Prison. He and Mandela developed a friendship...
, had told him in interviews that they suspected Gregory of spying for the government. Mandela later invited Gregory to his inauguration as President, apparently having forgiven him as he had the former president Pieter Botha, and the prosecutor Dr.
Percy YutarDr. Percy Yutar was South Africa’s first Jewish attorney-general. Yutar was one of eight children in a family of Lithuanian immigrants...
who had tried to get him executed in the
Rivonia TrialThe Rivonia Trial was a trial that took place in South Africa between 1963 and 1964, in which ten leaders of the African National Congress were tried for 221 acts of sabotage designed to overthrow the apartheid system.-Origins:...
.
See also
- Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...
- Long Walk to Freedom
Long Walk to Freedom is an autobiographical work written by Nelson Mandela, and published in 1995 by Little Brown & Co. The book profiles his early life, coming of age, education and 27 years in prison. Mandela was once regarded as a terrorist but he is now regarded as uncontroversial...
- FW de Klerk
- James Gregory
James Gregory was the censor officer and prison guard of Nelson Mandela for many years of his captivity.Gregory wrote the book Goodbye Bafana: Nelson Mandela, My Prisoner, My Friend, on which the 2007 film Goodbye Bafana was based.In his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela mentions...
- Goodbye Bafana
Goodbye Bafana, also released under the name The Color of Freedom, is a 2007 drama film, about the relationship between Nelson Mandela and James Gregory , his censor officer and prison guard, based on Gregory's book Goodbye Bafana: Nelson Mandela, My Prisoner, My Friend.Bafana means 'boys'...