NELSON MANDELA’S ex-wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, has denied harshly criticising the former South African president in an interview published by a British newspaper, saying the journalist who wrote the article was “a liar and a fraud”.
Last week the London Evening Standardran an interview with Ms Mandela conducted by journalist Nadira Naipaul, in which the 73-year-old said her former husband had betrayed poor black South Africans.
“This name Mandela is an albatross around the necks of my family,” Ms Madikizela-Mandela allegedly said during the interview at her home in Soweto, near Johannesburg. “Mandela let us down. He agreed to a bad deal for the blacks. Economically we are still on the outside. The economy is very much ‘white’.
“I cannot forgive him for going to receive the Nobel [Peace Prize] with his jailer [former South African president FW] de Klerk. Hand in hand they went. Do you think de Klerk released him from the goodness of his heart?”
She allegedly went on to say Mandela was now a “corporate foundation” that was “wheeled out” when the African National Congress (ANC) wanted to use his persona to raise money.
However, on Saturday, after returning from a trip to the US, Ms Madikizela-Mandela responded to the contents of the article, insisting the author had made the whole thing up.
“Let me start by categorically stating that this is completely false,” she said, “I gave no interview of any kind to Ms Naipaul. It is therefore not necessary for me to respond to the far-fetched content of a fabricated interview.”
Ms Madikizela-Mandela, who is an ANC MP, said she had spoken to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who she allegedly called “a cretin” during the interview, and that she intended speaking with her former husband to set the record straight.
“I appreciate the fact that my organisation, the ANC, decided to hear my ‘side’ before making any judgments,” she said.
Despite Ms Madikizela-Mandela's insistence Ms Naipaul had fabricated the interview, the London Evening Standardsaid it was standing by the journalist's story.
“Nadira Naipaul is a distinguished journalist who visited Winnie Mandela at home and spoke to her at length about her experiences.
“Nadira and her husband, the writer Sir VS Naipaul, are photographed with Winnie Mandela, and this picture was printed with the article. We cannot understand Winnie Mandela’s denial of an event and conversation which clearly took place,” the paper said in a statement on Saturday.
