GUEST COLUMN: Mandela and the failed vision of a united Africa - 3
Dr Kafumu is the Member of Parliament for Igunga Constituency
This week we continue to narrate the story of anti-apartheid fighter and pan-African Nelson Mandela, who spent his entire life opposing apartheid, the policy that separated whites from blacks. Due to his unbending efforts to fight the apartheid system Mandela will always be revered as a great leader and an icon of democracy, racial reconciliation and social justice.
On the 11th of January 1962, to push the liberation struggle to a new level and using a fake name of David Motsamayi, Mandela left South Africa and travelled around Africa, visiting Tanzania, Ethiopia, Zambia, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Ghana, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Mali and Guinea. He had an opportunity to meet the founding fathers of the pan-African movement who included Julius Nyerere of Tanganyika (now Tanzania), Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, William Tubman of Liberia and Ahmed Sékou Touré of Guinea.
In February 1962, while abroad, Mandela attended the Pan-African Freedom Movement for East, Central and Southern Africa (PAFMECA) meeting that was held in in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. This trip also provided great insights into the continental diplomacy, the liberation movements and the pan-African movement in Africa. Mandela had an opportunity in February 1962 to attend the Pan-African Freedom Movement for East, Central and Southern Africa (PAFMECA), a meeting that was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where he delivered a speech that outlined his patriotic and pan-African hopes.
In this PAFMECA meeting, he said: “…the great country of Ethiopia, which, with hundreds of years of colourful history behind it, can rightly claim to have paid the full price of freedom and independence. His Imperial Majesty, himself a rich and unfailing fountain of wisdom, has been foremost in promoting the cause of UNITY, INDEPENDENCE, and PROGRESS in AFRICA, as was so amply demonstrated in the address he graciously delivered in opening this assembly…”
At the PAFMECA meeting, Mandela continued to plead to the leaders of Africa of the time to take pan-Africanism as the vital reason for Africa to cooperate in emancipating and uniting the African continent. To this end he said: “…In such a grave situation it is fit and proper that this conference of PAFMECA should sound a clarion call to the struggling peoples in South Africa and other dependent areas, to close ranks, to stand firm as a rock and not allow themselves to be divided by petty political rivalries whilst their countries burn. At this critical moment in the history of struggle, UNITY amongst our people in SOUTH AFRICA and in the other TERRITORIES has become as vital as the air we breathe and it should be preserved at all costs…”
The excursion across Africa was also an instrument to solicit help in the liberation struggle from free African states. Mandela’s journey made possible for the Freedom Fighters of South Africa to travel to these countries for military training. From 1962 the ANC and the PAC then established training bases in Tanzania, Zambia, Algeria, Egypt, Ethiopia and other countries. The liberation struggle in South Africa became pan-African endeavour. These travels also prepared Mandela to adopt a broader pan-African vision for the struggle for freedom in South Africa.
In July 1962, after receiving military training in Morocco and Ethiopia Mandela returned to South Africa a committed freedom fighter who began operating freedom fighting activities in down town Johannesburg. On the 5th of August 1962, he was arrested in Johannesburg, charged with leaving the country without a permit and was convicted and sentenced to five years t.
He served his sentence until the 12th of June 1963 when he was freed. However, on the 5th October 1963, Mandela and several of his comrades were arrested at the ANC secret hideout in Rivonia, Johannesburg. They were put on trial for sabotage in what became known as the Rivonia Trial on the 9th October 1963. On the 20th April 1964, in self-defence , Mandela in the courtroom; gave a patriotic defence of a “freedom fighter” that came to be known as the “Speech from the Dock”.
