Mandela's Ex-Wife Says He Let Down S. Africa's Blacks

(March 10) -- Nelson Mandela's ex-wife has launched a scathing attack on the former South African president, accusing the 92-year-old of betraying the anti-apartheid movement he once fronted.

During an interview with London's Evening Standard newspaper, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela berated her former husband for being nothing more than a "corporate foundation" that was "wheeled out" when the ruling African National Congress party needed to raise some cash.

More damagingly, she slammed the internationally respected statesman for failing to dismantle the system of white rule after he was voted president in the country's first multi-ethnic elections in 1994.

"He agreed to a bad deal for the blacks. Economically, we are still on the outside. The economy is very much 'white,'" she said. "It has a few token blacks, but so many who gave their life in the struggle have died unrewarded."

Her comments have angered many South Africans, who -- although they may criticize Mandela for having failed to tackle black poverty -- view him as the father of the nation. And unlike leaders who followed, Mandela is remembered for a possessing a rare political quality: staying scandal free.

Since taking office last summer, President Jacob Zuma has been embroiled in numerous controversies, including most recently, the revelation that he had fathered a child with a woman other than one of his three wives. And a potential future party head, Julius Malema -- currently in charge of the ANC Youth League -- was this week condemned for singing the racist song, "Shoot The Boere, They Are Rapists," at a student rally at Johannesburg University.

Johannesburg newspaper The Star condemned Madikizela-Mandela for issuing what it saw as a "rant." And the city's daily Times said she had "two faces," as just last month she had praised Mandela as fearless during 20th anniversary celebrations of his release from Robben Island jail. In that same speech, Madikizela-Mandela had also declared that her ex-husband had emerged from prison with his revolutionary fires still raging.

She painted a different picture of the man in the Standard interview. "Mandela did go to prison and he went in there as a burning young revolutionary," she said. "But look what came out."

Her venom wasn't just confined to her ex. She also took a shot at Nobel peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former head of the post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission – set up to expose the human rights violations of the apartheid years. "What good does the truth do?" she asked. "I told [Tutu] that he and his other like-minded cretins were only sitting here because of our struggle and me."

So why is Madikizela-Mandela so angry? It's likely that she feels her crucial role in the anti-apartheid struggle -- which she helped lead during her husband's 27 years behind bars -- has been sidelined by the ANC and history as a whole. Mandela began to distance himself from his wife soon after he was released from prison in 1990, when he discovered she was allegedly connected to the brutal murders of suspected informants. The couple separated in 1992 and divorced four years later when Mandela accused her of infidelity.

And her reputation was further tarnished in 2003, when she was found guilty of fraudulently extracting $120,000 from the African National Congress Women's League -- an organization she headed. This criminal past means it's almost impossible for the ANC to present her in the same saintly light as her ex-husband.

Not that Madikizela-Mandela would have it any other way. "I am not sorry," she told the Standard. "I will never be sorry. I would do everything I did again if I had to. Everything."