Powerful Nelson Mandela Interview at Town Hall, USA that amazed the whole world (June 21st 1990)

tonight the issues and the controversy a thousand people have gathered at the city college of new york for a town meeting with nelson mandela ladies and gentlemen nelson mandela [Applause] [Music] [Applause] take it that's all we have [Applause] oh [Applause] [Music] a town meeting with nelson mandela mr mandela you're participating in what is a very old and honorable american tradition the town meeting and rather than waste any time with my questions if they don't ask you good ones i promise i will try to but i think we have some people out here who have some provocative and perhaps even controversial questions to ask you and i'd like to begin mr mandela you've come to the united states of america other than south africa probably the most racially divided country in the world evidence of that is right here in new york city we are one of the most racially divided cities in the world the blood of our children stained the sidewalks of new york howard beach benson hurst youssef hawkins michael griffith our grandmothers eleanor bumpers mothers yvonne smallwood if i may just ask you uh for your indulgence if you'd be good enough there will be some questions you'll like there'll be some questions you won't like let me just ask you though to save the time so that we can listen to mandela's answers mr mandela's answers mr mandela after the rousing welcome i have received here i do not know whether i am in a mood to think coolly i have been deeply touched by this warm welcome but to respond to the question i must say that the anc and infected the entire to promote the struggle again supported in our country and i must say to you that we have the support not only of the masses of the people we have the support of the congress as well as the government and i think that it would not be proper for me to delve into the controversial issues which are tearing the society of this country apart i am sure that the usa has produced the competent leaders of all of all population groups who are able to handle their own affairs very effectively let me follow up if i may on part of your answer you say you're sure you have the support of the people the congress and the leadership the by the leadership do you also mean the president of the united states are you satisfied that you have his support well i am sure of one thing that he condemns about it as i do that is enough for us to find further common room with the president and this is the message that i'm going to put to him when i met him and when you say you have the support of congress are you satisfied that you have enough votes in congress to keep sanctions but i cannot say that lies in the future but when i address congress the main trust of my speech is that the congress should support sanctions why are you so insistent mr mandela and then we'll go to a question of this microphone over here why are you so insistent upon maintaining sanctions at a time when it can be argued that the south african government has made more concessions your release being only one of them than it has ever made in the past 40 years i should know better about this matter mr corporal than you no doubt after all it is the anc not the government that is responsible for the present talks we have been hammering the government since 1986 tomatoes endings and in spite of the humiliating and insulting conditions they tried to impose on us before they could agree to meeting us we nevertheless had sufficient patience and sufficient commitment to peace as to continue hammering them to meet us they have eventually done so but despite the fact that the talks are now on apartheid is still in place the police are still killing our people as they've done over the years vigilante groups are openly arming themselves for the specific purpose of a turkey progressive groups and progressive leaders their right wing is also arming it itself openly and they say they are doing so for the purpose of destroying the anc they are calling for some of us to be heard why would you think that we should now relax our strategies what has happened let's move on to the next question amanta my name is gloria toote i was born here in harlem i'm a lawyer i've lived here all my life i'm also on the board of directors of the african educational foundation that's raising money to train the people of africa for industry i am concerned about the future economy of south africa i am concerned when i look that the newer countries that gain their freedom so hard fought indeed did not demonstrate sound fiscal policy illiteracy is still quite large and hunger what can assure me as a human being and a concerned african-american that the anc will indeed have a fiscal solvent policy that will continue the use of the resources of south africa in a meaningful way or should i put it more succinctly will your economy be based on the marxist system socialism or capitalism or both i knew that that that was the question you wanted to ask [Applause] i'm happy that you've had the courage to put it directly [Applause] we are not concerned with models we are not concerned with labels we are practical men and women whose solutions are dictated by the actual conditions existing in our country as somebody has said we do not care whether the cat is black or white as long as it can catch mice if i may what we want what we want to achieve is a healthy and vibrant economy which can ensure full employment to our people maximum production and the development of social justice we wanted to rectify the imbalances that exist in our economy one of the companies well-known companies in the country one company owns more than 75 percent of the shirts quoted in the johannesburg stock exchange this is illustrative of how our economy is organized it is moderate the the resources of the country are monopolized by a white minority even in that minority by a few individuals whereas the masses of the people especially blacks are left poor ridden with disease illiteracy without educational facilities we wanted to develop an economy which will put an end to that and will leave to other people to put a label if they so wish mr mandela forgive me [Applause] and we're back once again and uh mr mandela as i told you before we began this broadcast almost all the questions will be coming here from the audience but we also went to a couple of people back in south africa told them you were going to be on the broadcast and asked them if they had any questions for you or comments that they wanted to make to you one of those from whom we are about to hear now and i'd like you to address your attention over to that monitor is a man by the name of khus von demurder who's one of the leaders of the conservative party have a listen to what he has to say hello nelson i'm a south african i'm an afrikaner i want self-determination for my people in a part of south africa you can't have the whole south africa for yourself a part of it belongs to my people nelson you're not going to nationalize the assets of the white people i have worked for my banks my minds my businesses and my farms you are not going to take it stop your violence stop your sanction campaign stop your nonsense leave the violent campaign alone and come and sit down become a normal person and talk and maybe that way we can find solutions and lastly forget communism nelson it's gone and i hope you will be well i believe you were ill i hope you will recover and have a good journey now well just to interpret please what i said i just wanted to demonstrate that i am bilingual all i have said to question them ever is to say i am happy to know you i hope that one day we shall have the opportunity to discuss the affairs of our country that is all now let me pick up if i may mr mandela though on on what kuswanda murtha had to say he represents as you know a small but significant segment of the white population in south africa which is pressuring mr de clerk from that political side of the spectrum to what degree do you feel any need to help president de clerk deal with people like cruz fundamental mr de clerk is an independent resource resourceful and flexible leader he is able on his own to deal with the right wing the outside world will be making a grave mistake if they think they can do anything whatsoever to help mr declared as against the right wing in fact for the international community to seek to do anything expressly to help mr degrad would be the best way of undermining him because what the right wing is doing is to tell the whites in south africa that declared is a puppet of the united states and great britain and that what is doing now is precisely because he has received instructions from those two countries and if now the western world comes out to say they want to help the clerk that is what the right wing exactly wants you will destroy him we the anc are the only people who can help him and we are doing our very best to help him one of the points we are putting to him is that mr declared if he wants to see the future non-racial south africa emerging is to speed up in regard to the negotiating process that in a year or two he should be able to extend the vote to all south africans he must cease a thinking in terms of solutions by seeking a mandate to white only he must place himself in a position where he can get the support of the overwhelming majority of the people of south africa and if he gives every man and woman whatever the color of his game the right to vote he will be in an extremely strong position and there's nothing that the right wing can do but if he continues as he is doing at the present moment still to think of racist solutions solutions which are seen first and foremost as protecting the rights of the whites he will go under let us move on to our next questionnaire at the microphone over there mr welcome to america mr mandela i'm ken edelman those of us who share your struggle for human rights and against apartheid have been somewhat disappointed by the models of human rights that you have held up since being released in jail you've met over the last six months three times with yes sir arafat who you have praised you have told qaddafi that you share the view on and applaud him on his record of human rights and his drive for freedom and peace around the world and you have praised fidel castro as a leader of human rights and said that cuba was one of the countries that's head and shoulders above all other countries and human rights despite the fact that documents of the united nations and elsewhere show that cuba is one of the worst i was just wondering are these your models of leaders of human rights and if so would you want a gaddafi or an arafat or a castro to be a future president of south africa one of the mistakes which has some political honors make is to think that their enemies should be our enemies [Applause] that we can and we will never do we have our own struggle which we are conducting we are grateful to the world for supporting our struggle but nevertheless we are an independent organization with its own policy and the attitude of every country towards our attitude towards any country is determined by the attitude of that country to our struggle yes colonel gaddafi fidel castro support our struggle to the hilt there is no reason whatsoever why we should have any hesitation about hailing their commitment to human rights as they are being demanded in south africa our attitude is based solely on the fact that they fully support the anti-apartheid struggle they do not support it only in rhetoric they are placing resources at our disposal for us [Applause] that is the position mr mandela you've uh you've said a number of very controversial things in that last response and i'd like to come back to some of them when we return but once again we have to take a quick break we'll be back in a moment thank you the couple reports will continue in a moment and we are back once again uh with nelson mandela at the city college of new york mr mandela as i mentioned to you before the program we also have some distinguished guests sitting behind us uh one of whom uh mr henry sigmund together with two other jewish leaders came to geneva to visit with you precisely because they were so concerned not only by the kind of thing that you just said before the break with regard to yasa arafat with regard to libya's colonel qaddafi but also because of the support that you seemed at different times to give to the plo i would like to ask mr sigmund to to stand now for a moment and pose whatever question he would like directly to you mr siegmund before i pose my question uh permit me to say first that when i had the pleasure and honor of meeting with mr mandela in geneva we said to him and i would like to repeat this now in order to put my question in context that the commitment of the jewish organizations that met with him to the struggle against apartheid against racism against injustice in south africa is absolutely unconditional it is not dependent on whether we are happy or unhappy with responses that mr mandela gives to some questions having said that [Applause] [Music] having said that i think i would be dishonest if i did not express profound disappointment with the answer that mr mandela gave to the previous question because it suggests a certain degree of immorality the that suggests that the what these people do in their own countries what a gaddafi does in libya what what a uh castro does in cuba is totally irrelevant even in terms of the issue of of human rights as long as they support the cause of the anc i hope that is not what mr mandela meant and i would hope that he would clarify that issue further mr mandela [Applause] fastly we are a liberation movement which is fully involved in a struggle to emancipate our people from one of the worst racial tyrannies the world has seen we have no time to be looking into the internal affairs of other countries it is unreasonable for anybody to think that this is our role i have been asked by somebody wants me to express an opinion on the differences that are taking place within the usa and he has made his position quite clearly that there is racialism in this country i have refused to be drawn into that [Applause] why should mr siegmund accept my refusal to be withdrawn into the internal affairs of the united states and at the same time want me to be involved in the internal affairs of libya and cuba i refuse to do that as far as yasa arafat is concerned i explained to mr sidney that we identify with the pno because just like ourselves they are fighting for the right of [Applause] self-determination i went further however to say that the support for yasa arafat in his struggle does not mean that the anc has ever doubted the right of israel to exist as a state [Applause] legally we have stood quite openly and firmly for the right of that state to exist within secured borders but of course as i said to mr sigma in geneva and others that we carefully define what we mean by secure borders we do not mean that israel has the right to retain the territories they conquered from the arab world like the gaza strip the golan heights and the west bank we don't agree with that those territories should be returned to the other people [Applause] mr mandela i also explained to mr sigmund and company that in our organization we have jews in fact mr gaddafi did not allow us to open our offices in libya precisely because we had the courage to say to him we work with the jews in our organization and he didn't allow us to open an office until february this year when he had to accept us as we are we are not prepared to be saved by anybody we have an independent policy which we accept no matter with whom we discuss mr mandela let's move on to our next question welcome my name is malcolm dunn i'm from plainfield new jersey and i'm chairman of the united minority business brain trust in new jersey and the national chairman of the american legal defense fund for the minority business organizations i have a question that relates to our participation in business in this country we who have gained the moxie and who have reached certain uh levels of proficiency in business and education in various professions would like to know what can we offer what can we who have been denied excess total absorption into the american system in those professions what can we prepare ourselves to offer to you in the motherland given your attainment of the one vote one person one vote i asked this in the context of eastern european countries being free and the money that was formally sent to uh africa is now being diverted to those eastern european countries i ask also in the context that though our country has opened up its doors to people of a lighter hue before they have absorbed us fully in this country and if you have an answer to my question please let me know who i can contact after this assemblage to keep up the dialogue thank you [Applause] the black people of america of the usa have a lot to offer the people of south africa in the course of their struggle whatever disabilities you have in this country at least you have been exposed to opportunities which we don't have you have better educational facilities there is no legal caliber in this country and therefore you have been able to acquire in spite of your problems you have been able to acquire expect knowledge skills which we require especially when during the poster part of south africa you can help us a great deal by making that expertise available to us as far as the question of who you can contact keep in contact with in our country that we can discuss after this occasion all right we're going to take another quick commercial break and then we'll be back in a moment [Applause] [Music] the couple report a town meeting with nelson mandela continues once again ted koppel mr mandela as i mentioned to you also before you came out here this afternoon there are black leaders in south africa with whom you and your organization have differences one of them who represents uh many of the zulu people political organization known as incata has got your budo lazy if you'd be good enough to direct your attention once again to the monitor and listen to what he has to say i know my diva that you're not responsible for our not getting together and i know that it's other people that have said they've said i'm not imagining it they've said it in so many words that they don't want you and i to get together but majima all these years you have been incarcerated you know we've been in touch we will know that i've always paid tribute to you that i've refused you know to negotiate with any of the white leaders in this country for for decades now because i told them that it was an absolute non-negotiable that i can get to the conference table without you and your our brothers were incarcerated with you and others and before the unbanning of anc pac and other organizations so i think in your absence you might be interested to know that one of our brothers who is very close to us been to see me he'll have a certain message for you when you return and i said to myself that it's absolutely up to you because there's nothing that prevents you even in the united states to pick up a telephone and and say hello and talk to me as we're doing ever since you left uh sanger i do not think it's correct for me to wash our dirty linen in a foreign country even though it is i am hesitant to do that even though here i have the feeling that i am among the comrades in arms rather than sister one thing i would like to dispel with all the force at my command is that there is no difference whatsoever between myself and my organization on the attitude towards encounter and yourself in person [Applause] if i have not seen you it is because of decisions which we have carefully discussed amongst ourselves and of which i am part i however would like to repeat what you know i have said on numerous occasions i would like the anc and in qatar to sit down and resolve our problems and end the violence that is going on today in nadal but you know as well as i do that the question is no longer simple the government has taken advantage of the differences between my organization and your organization they are using those differences for the purpose of trying to eliminate the anc and what they consider to be members of that organization who are a threat to white supremacy that now is our problem it is no longer just a question of me meeting you i have asked mr de clark the simple question i have said to him you have a strong efficient and well-equipped army and police force can you tell me why the government has failed to suppress violence in which almost four thousand blacks have been killed [Applause] mr de clark has never been able to give a satisfactory answer to my question i have told him i've given him the answer i have said to him you have not suppressed this violence deliberately because you believe that by using these differences between these two organizations you can crush your enemy number one the anc that is your difficulty and i must repeat to you that is the main problem facing the people of south africa it is the involvement of the government and its police in the violence that is taking place in natal we have mr mandela uh i believe on microphone b over there a former representative of the south african government he was until very recently the consul general here in new york would you like to come to the microphone and pose your questions let me say mr carpel mr mandela as one who for a period of years has advocated your unconditional release i want to say at the outset i'm delighted to see you here in new york welcome thank you secondly i also commend you for your loyalty to your friends controversial though that may be but in framing my question in dealing with nutella in particular i as a white south african am most concerned about the blood letting the carnage that is going on and whilst i take the point that you've made that the police possibly and probably could do more i do believe that the challenge or the ball is in your court mr mandela because one cannot we as south africans cannot afford to have south africans killing south africans we've got to have peace harmony a strong economy we've got to hold out our hands to each other so we can build the new south africa with a minimum of bitterness i believe sir that you are the statesman who can do it i would like to do you to do it and i would like you to issue a call i'd like you to extend the hand to chief gotcha but lazy irrespective of political differences irrespective of dirty linen irrespective of what has gone before i believe you owe it to each other and the country to see that we have a stable secure platform on which to go forward together white black and brown i hope you agree i do not consider your remarks as a lecture to me [Applause] [Music] because because you would know that it is the anc and not the government that has compelled the government to sit down and talk peace with us it is the anc that is mobilizing the entire country today around the question of peace you would also know that i have made several calls at public rallies that no solution is possible in south africa without involving chief utilities you would know this yeah i have made that call not once but several times but it is the government that is responsible for all our problems in regard to natal the questions that i have put to mr declared he has not been able to answer i wonder if you can answer them the government has had no hesitation whatsoever in suppressing similar violence before why is it that it has not even attempted to suppress that violence after all no government anywhere in the world can tolerate violence in which close to 4 000 people have been killed without intervening why is your government not intervening that is the question that you must answer uh i would answer you by saying that i don't represent the government and i would hope that the government would do exactly what you say i do not quarrel with you and i do not presumptuously lecture you mr mandela i wish you well thank you very much we have ripped through the first part of this broadcast extraordinarily quickly there's still a number of issues that we have to take up with mr mandela not the least of them being sanctions by the united states against south africa i'm ted koppel at the city college of new york and this is a special edition of nightline nelson mandela day two of his visit to the united states more celebration more adoring crowds a reminder to his people of how far they have come in the words of the prophet isaiah we have risen up as on the wings of eagles a reminder of how far they have yet to go their old order is crumbling but the age of freedom has not yet done ladies and gentlemen nelson mandela and in the middle of his day an extraordinary town meeting part of which you may have seen but for those who missed it here's a sampler we identify with the plo because just like ourselves they are fighting for the right of self-determination mandela displayed a sense of humor or should i put it more succinctly will your economy be based on the marxist system socialism or capitalism or above i knew that that that was the question you wanted to ask he responded to his critics at home monitor is a man by the name of murder who's one of the leaders of the conservative party have a listen to what he has to say nelson you're not going to nationalize the assets of the white people i have worked for my banks my minds my businesses and my farms you are not going to take it stop your violence stop your nonsense all i have said to question them ever is to say i am happy to know you i hope that one day we shall have the opportunity to discuss the affairs of our country there's nothing that prevents you even in the united states to pick up a telephone and say hello and talk to me as we're doing ever since you left jail for me to wash our dirty linen in a foreign country even though it is i am hesitant to do that even though here i have the feeling but i am among the comrades in arms welcome to america he faced his critics here head on those of us who share your struggle for human rights and against apartheid have been somewhat disappointed by the models of human rights that you have held up since being released in jail you've met over the last six months three times with yes sir arafat yasa arafat kennel gaddafi fidel castro support our struggle to the hilt i think i would be dishonest if i did not express profound disappointment with the answer that mr mandela gave to the previous question because it suggests a certain degree of immorality the above all nelson mandela stated his positions forcefully why are you so insistent upon maintaining sanctions at a time when it can be argued that the south african government has made more concessions your release being only one of them than it has ever made in the past 40 years i should know better about this matter mr coppel than you no doubt and now in the nightline segment of our broadcast there's much more to come and we are back once again at the city college of new york with nelson mandela and mr mandela we have just heard a number of the things that you said in our hour between 10 o'clock and 11 o'clock this evening some controversial things not the kinds of things necessarily but a very political man says if you were very political you might have been more concerned about not alienating some people in this country who have it within their hands within their power either to continue sanctions against south africa or to raise those sanctions to lift them why were you why were you not a little more political perhaps we're too accustomed to politicians in this country i do not understand what you mean perhaps uh if you clarify what you are referring to i may be in a position to comment what i'm saying is that in this country for example there has been for many years a close alliance between the jewish population and the black population in the civil rights struggle there is likely to be a rather negative reaction to some of the things that you have said that reaction could very well cause people to call up their congressmen their senators and say ah go ahead lift the sanctions why not after all president the clerk is doing a great deal against apartheid only today in fact his number two man herrera said that the government perceives itself in south africa as being part of the anti-apartheid struggle one of the problems we are facing in the world today are people who do not look at problems objectively but from the point of view of their own interests that makes things difficult because once a person is not objective it is extremely difficult to reach an agreement one of the best examples of this is to think that because arafat is conducting a struggle against the state of israel that we must therefore condemn him we can't do that it is just not possible for any organization of or individual of integrity to do anything of the sort i don't also want to leave the impression if i might just intervene with one point i don't want to leave the impression that this is only going to be a jewish black issue there are great many cuban americans in this country who will be just as offended by some of the comments you've made about fidel castro and cuba no mr coppell i don't agree with you i am saying that it would be a grave mistake for us to consider our attitude towards yasa arafat on the basis of the interest of the jewish community we sympathize with the struggles of the jewish people and their persecution right down the years in fact we have been very much influenced by the lack of racialism amongst the jewish communities in our own country in the political trials that have taken place when few lawyers were prepared to defend us it has been the jewish lawyers who have come forward to defend us i myself i myself was articulate i'm a lawyer by profession and i was trained to become a lawyer by a jewish fair at a time when few films in our country we're prepared to take blacks [Applause] and as i have said we have many jews members of the jewish community in our struggle and they have occupied very top positions but that does not mean to say that the enemies of israel are our enemies we refuse to take that position you can call it being political or a moral question but for anybody who changes his principles on whom he is dealing that is not a man who can lead a nation [Applause] oh apparently mr copper you have not listened to my argument if you have done so then you have not been serious in examining it i have replied to one of our friends here that i have refused to be drawn into the differences that exist between various communities inside the usa you have not commented that i am going to offend anybody by refusing to involve myself in the internal affairs of the usa of the usa [Music] why are you so keen that i should involve myself in the internal affairs of cuba and libya no i expect you to be consistent i don't know if i've paralyzed [Applause] no uh [Applause] i'm i'm afraid mr mandela that paralysis does not set in quite that easily in my case the point uh uh since i've just about recovered from my paralysis i want to come back to that question in just a moment but first we need to take a break the point that i was trying to make and and clearly did not make uh with any great success but the point that i was trying to make is that you must not be misled by what is after all what in this country we call a hometown crowd these people are very much with you you have seen that the people who come out to see you the people who will come to yankee stadium to see you the people who line the motorcade routes to see you you don't have to convince them they are people who already believe in you and believe in your cause but this is a very large and diverse country and when i was making my observations about the the lack of politicism and in this country saying someone is not a politician is not meant as an insult necessarily uh when i was accusing you of a lack of of political qualities there i was wondering whether you are conscious of the impact that you will have on a great many people who are not here today who do not see you in perhaps the same benign fashion that so many people in this audience see well as far as the jewish question to begin with i have had discussions at my own initiative with prominent jewish leaders to straighten out this affair amongst the people i saw was mrs helen susman who has been an mp in our country for more than 30 years there was mr masons who has been a judge in lesotho botswana and the old rodasha there was the chief rabbi of johannesburg there was professor katz from the university of viet verdurain and an eminent uh community leader in in south africa we discussed this question and all misunderstanding was clear the question of yasa arafat and the plo i have also discussed the question with the jewish leaders in the usa and very top people like mr siegmund we reached an agreement on this question and we saw eye to eye now i don't know where your concern arises the jewish leaders themselves are able to determine their own affairs nobody else is entitled to say that the jewish leaders are going to be concerned about your state because i justify because i have heard the discussions with them and those discussions with rich consensus but there are matters of course in which we did not agree but the position which we take as the anc i thought we were able to explain it in such a way that it removed the concern of the jewish community let's broaden it i am still prepared to do that even in this talk if the jewish leader have any doubts about our stand i am prepared to address them and to allay at their concern because they are a very important community both in south africa and of course in the states and i'm prepared to iron out any differences that might exist but they must know what our stand is arafat is a comrade in arm mr mandela we need to take a break again when we come back we'll be taking up the issue of sanctions sure to be one of the major questions one of the major topics of conversation when our guest mr mandela visits washington at the beginning of next week allow me mr mandela to broaden the subject out a little bit and to introduce now another distinguished guest here senator boren who indeed will be called upon very shortly to vote upon the issue of sanctions senator boren i wonder if you'd be good enough to stand up and and to give me your assessment of how much trouble do you think mr mandela is going to have on this issue how warmly will he be received in the u.s congress ted i think he's going to be very warmly received by people in both parties and by the administration as well while there may be some differences of opinion on certain issues like positions on arafat and gaddafi i think the american people understand what has gone on in south africa we have seen families divided because they've been classified according to race we know that people are denied the right to vote because of race we know that people are detained and not even given a trial because of race and the american people regardless of party or position on other issues are not about to relieve the pressure until that system [Applause] let me let me ask one question ted i do think that many of us understand that there are pressures being exerted that mr mandela and president de clerk as they start toward negotiations have extremists on both sides who really do not want to see them succeed who do not want to see a peaceful transition and we're concerned i understand why we must not release the pressure and i think there's a bipartisan decision not to do that the president has reached out to us in congress to say that he will consult with us on any future policy decisions that are made but i wonder if there are some positive signals we could send positive to both mr mandela and to mr de clerk as well that would reach out to help south africa that would show our encouragement for these negotiations and that perhaps could help the country as it does move to a non-racial democracy can you give us a to the senator and then mr mandela helps helping the schools i know that uh black children in school only one out of every five even has a textbook because the past government has spent eight times as much educating white children as black children are there positive things we can do mr mandela at this point to send a signal both to you and to mr de clerk that we encourage progress in these negotiations that are going on well mr couple i think i would have an easier task if you ask me to pass a vote of thanks to senator bone he has said all the things that are required to be said in regard to the problems of south africa he has a very positive attitude and he is constructive he is one of those men who are concerned not with fights only in his own country in his own region he is one of those men who have selected the world as a theater for their own efforts for their own operations and it is refreshing to be in the presence of such a man as far as giving a signal uh to declare is concerned i have warned that it will be a serious mistake for the outside world to do anything with the stated objective of helping mr declare because it is that type of attitude which has enabled the right way to increase its popularity as far as the whites are concerned please whatever you do don't do that i have said the anc is the best organization to help mr de clerk we are addressing that question and i might disclose to you now that we have already that is the anc we have already started speaking to the right wing we have already spoken to a very influential member of the right wing and those discussions were very possible positive and they raised hope for greater development in our relations with the right wing don't interfere in this question i can i accept your born a few days in this regard but you are playing with fire if you think in terms of rewarding mr declared because you will undermine his position uh considerable we are however having discussions with mr clerk and i am optimistic that we are going to make progress i think he is as determined as we are to see to if that south africa becomes a non-racial society free of all forms of racialism i am convinced about this the only respect in which you can give a signal to both the national party to both the government and the anc is to consult both these organizations as to what you could do to facilitate the process of peaceful negotiations it is not a matter that can be discussed in a meeting of this nature this is an extremely sensitive matter which if right the right time the time is right and the element of confidentiality is retained there can be an exchange of opinion but to think in terms of rewarding one side one party and that is declared is a serious mistake you raise an interesting question we're going to take a break mr mandela but i hope that when we come back let me pose the question to you right now you can think about it for a second you are speaking of not rewarding the two sides and yet of course when it comes to rewarding the anc one of the things that you are doing over there over here is trying to raise money for the anc which could be perceived by some as rewarding one side in this debate i would like uh just to take a pause now and then when we come back i'll ask you to respond thank you back in just a moment and we are back once again at the city college of new york with nelson mandela just before the break mr mandela i raised with you the issue of the money that you were raising while you were here for the anc can that not be perceived as rewarding one of the sides in the struggle and you were making the point that we should sort of stay out of this rewarding business well i don't think that we mean that means the same thing what the certain sections of the international community are saying is that mr de klerk should be rewarded because he has done something to deserve that and the first difficulty i have about that is that mr de klerk has done nothing we have done something what are you rewarding him for that's the first question well let me let me try and give the answer and have you respond your release the release of other political prisoners the recognition of the anc of the south african communist party uh now the lifting of the state of emergency in all provinces but natal those are actions which the anc and your supporters have been asking for for many years and some people would say as each of these demands is met the anc is moving the goal posts on the field now mr corporal you are entirely misinformed in the first place the anc ought never to have been banned secondly my comrades and i ought never have been sent to prison the state of emergency ought to never have to have been improved you are crediting mr clerk for rectifying his own mistakes his own injustices [Applause] you must remember that in in enforcing apartheid many of our people have been killed and many of our people have been executed for resisting a policy which the government now admits is an evil system what are you rewarding him for as against that background that is the question let me turn the question around as i mentioned we have come here to say we are fighting against injustice help us as the masses of the people of south africa who are living under repressive laws a repressive system help us to destroy repression there's no question of reward we are not saying to the outside world help us reward us for having negotiated initiated the peace talks we are saying that reward they should go to the people of south africa as a whole not to any particular organization could it not then be argued mr mandela that you will use the same arguments no matter what because clearly you would argue and i think with some justice that until south africans have one man one vote until the system of apartheid in in all of its aspects is removed those are all injustices by your definition correct are you then arguing that sanctions against south africa should not be lifted until every one of those injustices is removed [Applause] they front the people of south africa the front line states the organization of african unit the non-aligned movement they general assembly of the united nations are all agreed that until fundamental and irreversible changes take place in the police of the country sanctions must be maintained i am not here putting forward the views of an individual or of an individual organization i am putting to you what is being said by the entire world they insist that the sanctions should be maintained until fundamental and irreversible changes take place in the police of the country mr mandela we've just about used up all of your available time but we will have time for just one more question when we come back in a moment mr mandela i know that you are out of time we are at least out of our time with you but i wanted us to end on a point of wisdom uh and when in doubt always go to a youngster let's go for the last question to the young man at the microphone over there my name is bernardo charles iii and i'm eight years old and i'm very glad you're that you're free mr mandela and um if there's anything we any of us can do just send us a postcard with with anything that you want us to do and we'll do it even even raise money [Music] you want to come up here and ask some more questions yes all right while the young man comes down here while the young man comes down here so that he can shake hands with mr mandela i would like to extend my thanks to mr mandela to all of our audience and to our distinguished guests who've been with us here this evening come on up [Music] i want to give you an autograph somebody got a piece of paper that please oh absolutely we got we got everything you need right here there you go thank you i've got one i've got one what is your name to bernado bernado what's your first name b-e-r-n-a-r-d bernard i see that thank you very much thank you thank you well donut thank you very much [Music] [Applause] this has been abc news nightline a town meeting with nelson mandela

Channel: Pan-African Daily TV

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Length: 73min 1sec (4381 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 06 2021