Mandela Backing Down On US War


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Business Day (Johannesburg)
January 3, 2002  
Posted to the web January 3, 2002  
Linda Ensor, Political Correspondent

CAPE TOWN Former president Nelson Mandela has backed down from his earlier unreserved support of the US war effort in Afghanistan and has written to US President George Bush to qualify his position.
The strongly pro-war comments Mandela made on a visit to the US and in a speech in Durban elicited strong criticism from Muslim groups in SA and from the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC).
At the time he said Osama bin Laden should be captured and tried for the September 11 attacks in the US. He said that Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network should be smashed and terrorist strongholds destroyed.
However, Nelson Mandela Foundation chairman Prof Jakes Gerwel said yesterday that Mandela had sent a letter to Bush "to appropriately qualify the view we previously expressed to him in person and in correspondence".
Mandela's office also issued a statement saying his stance was "one-sided and overstated" and gave the impression that he was "insensitive to and uncaring about the suffering inflicted upon the Afghan people and country".
Mandela said he had changed his view after discussions with family, friends and advisers and expressed regret if he had offended Muslims in SA and throughout the world for the manner in which he stated it.
"We shall be arranging meetings with Muslim leadership in the country early in the new year to personally convey this message to them," Mandela said.
"The labelling of Osama bin Laden as the terrorist responsible for those acts before he had been tried and convicted could also be seen as undermining some of the basic tenets of the rule of law," he said.
"Our opposition to all forms of terrorism remains total and we support the stance of our government in joining international efforts to combat and eradicate terrorism. Those responsible for the terror acts of September 11 must be apprehended and brought to trial without inflicting suffering on innocent people."
A US embassy spokeswoman said no official response had yet been received from the White House to Mandela's letter. She noted that the qualifications expressed by Mandela were "understandable". Mandela continued to support the war against terrorism and, like the Bush administration, emphasised that the war was not against Muslims or Arabs, but against terrorists.
PAC MP Patricia de Lille welcomed the qualification, saying the ability to publicly correct his views was typical of Mandela's statesmanship.
Democratic Alliance foreign affairs spokesman Colin Eglin anticipated that Mandela's statement would cause as much surprise in some circles as his initial views had done in others. Eglin said that it was not the first time Mandela had publicly changed his views on certain matters.
The Muslim Youth Movement of SA said yesterday Mandela's about-face reaffirmed their belief that he was a politician and leader of integrity who was willing to publicly accept that he erred in statements he had made to the international media. With SapaGet more from the Web.  FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com

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