While praising President Clinton for his “integrity,” South African President Nelson Mandela also publicly lectured him Friday, going so far as to question the benefits of democracy.
Mandela also defended his friendship with Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi and Cuba’s Fidel Castro and said those South Africans who disagreed with him “can go and throw themselves in a pool.”
Mandela’s statements came at a joint news conference that followed a one-hour and 45- minute private meeting between the two.
For his part, Clinton ignored the negative comments and lavishly praised Mandela, “His emergence from his many years on Robben Island is one of the true heroic stories of the 20th Century.”
Later, the two took a helicopter to the bleak prison isle and toured the cell in which Mandela was incarcerated for 18 of his 27 years in prison. He was released from prison in 1990 and four years later became South Africa’s first black president.
On the island, the two walked with their arms around each other, showing more typical signs of what has been a warm friendship.
One of the chief purposes of Clinton’s 12-day trip to Africa is to persuade nations there that by becoming democracies or increasing the liberties they grant people, they will benefit economically from their relations with the United States.
But Mandela began his prepared remarks by saying people in non-democratic countries are sometimes “looked after better than in so-called democratic countries.”
He also said: “We have democratic countries but where poverty of the masses of the people is rife.”
Later Mandela said: “Mr. President, democracy without solving poverty, hunger, illiteracy is an empty shell.”
Not all of the South African leader’s remarks were critical. In praising Clinton, Mandela said: “I have greatly appreciated your own personal deep sense of concern and solidarity with our cause. In you, I have discerned an attachment to the aspirations of the most vulnerable sectors of society that comes from deep within your heart and soul. I wish to say thank you for the contributions you made to our difficult march to freedom.”
Nonetheless, Mandela defended his relationships with countries the United States considers pariahs.
While Mandela was spending his long years in prison and his movement, the African National Congress, was engaged in armed struggle, it was supported financially by Libya, Cuba and members of the Soviet bloc, among others.
Mandela said he would not now turn his back on his old friends “because our moral authority dictates that we should not abandon those who helped us in the darkest hour in the history of this country.”
The United States has complained several times to Mandela about his friendly relations with Libya, where Gadhafi harbors two men suspected of planting a bomb on Pan Am Flight 103 that killed 270 people in 1988.
Mandela also lectured Clinton that the United States, “as the leader of the world,” should “call upon its enemies to say let’s sit down and talk peace.”
The United States is leading economic embargoes against Libya and Cuba.
At a state banquet Friday night, Mandela presented Clinton with South Africa’s highest honor, the Order of Good Hope, a medal he previously had bestowed on Gadhafi.
The White House was so concerned with Mandela’s critical statements that following the news conference, aides were dispatched to the press room to “spin” reporters.
“There really was no news,” one aide said. “I think we expected him to say exactly what he said. He’s said it many times before.”
Joseph Wilson, special assistant to the president for African Affairs, said, “I don’t think South Africa is hellbent on having relations with pariah states at the expense of their relations with mainstream states.”
On the way back from Robben Island, Samuel “Sandy” Berger, Clinton’s national security adviser, said: “I can understand Mr. Mandela’s sense of loyalty, but our position regarding Libya is also based on principle. We want to see justice brought to the families of the 270 people blown out of the sky over Lockerbie, Scotland, with compelling evidence that Libya is responsible.”
Berger also said it is important to keep in mind that Clinton and Mandela have an “extremely warm, personal relationship.”
Publicly, Clinton had nothing but good things to say about Mandela, stating that the stiff winds that have caused Cape Town to be nicknamed Africa’s “Windy City” are “winds of change and good fortune.”
“I thank you for being so much the cause of the good that is occurring not only in your own country but throughout this continent,” Clinton said to Mandela at the news conference.
In response to questions, Clinton once again declined to apologize for slavery but said, “I don’t think anyone believes that any living American today would defend, feel proud of or in any way stand up for the years we had slavery or the awful legacy which it left in its wake.” Clinton said that based on his discussions with African-Americans it was more important to concentrate on the future than the past.
The news conference began with Clinton stumbling slightly as he helped Mandela, who has severe arthritis in his knees, down the steep steps of Cape Town’s presidential mansion. The two stood in the sunshine for 42 minutes beneath two giant carved cherubs on the building’s facade.
Near the end of the news conference, Mandela raised one last point of disagreement with Clinton: The Clinton administration is supporting an African trade bill, passed by the House and awaiting approval by the Senate, that would reward with greater trade those African nations that strengthen their democratic institutions.
Mandela said he has “serious reservations” about the bill, which he declined to detail, but did say: “To us, it is not acceptable.”
Clinton responded that the bill would help all African nations but would offer more help to those countries “that make greater strides toward democracy, human rights and economic reform.”
One nation the United States is trying to push in that direction is Nigeria, a U.S. oil supplier that is ruled by military dictator Sani Abacha. Abacha has promised to turn the country over to civilian rule by Oct. 1, but Clinton signaled that Abacha would be an acceptable leader if he resigned from the military. “If he stands for election,” Clinton said, “we hope he will stand as a civilian.”
In the sole domestic matter he spoke off, Clinton said that after he returned from Africa, he would meet with Atty. Gen. Janet Reno to discuss the Jonesboro, Ark., school shootings.
At Robben Island, Clinton said he wanted to concentrate on how “hope arises from the ashes of terrible tragedy.”
A dry, dusty former leper colony, the island is where the white rulers of South Africa imprisoned black, Asian and mixed-race prisoners. It is maintained as a museum and has become a popular tourist site, where former prisoners act as tour guides.
In Cellblock B, Mandela and Clinton walked down a long, featureless gray corridor to tiny Cell 5, which contained only a small stack of felt blankets, a slop bucket, a tin plate and a cup.
“This was my home,” Mandela said lightheartedly. “It was so big at the time. I don’t know why it’s so small now.”
During his first 14 years at Robben Island, Mandela was forced to sleep on the cell’s floor. When he developed a back problem, he was allowed a cot.
Hillary Rodham Clinton and Mandela’s companion, Graca Machel, also entered the cell, where there was much chatter, smiling and waving. The group then visited the courtyard where Mandela spent years with a hammer breaking large rocks into small ones and small ones into smaller ones.
Mandela said that when he comes back to Robben Island, “I call back into memory that great saga in which the authorities, who were pitiless, insensitive, and cruel nevertheless failed in their evil intentions” to crush his spirit or the spirits of his fellow prisoners.
Clinton said, “Thank God that the person who occupied this cell was able to live all those years in that way without having his heart turn to stone and without giving up on his dreams for South Africa.”
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