Extensions of Remarks

22980 EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS September 5, 1985 EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS A SYMBOL OF HOPE AND ing black satellite, "I will probably pass him in the wake of the massacre, leaders such as DETERMINATION by because I would not recognize him." Mr. Mandela decided to tum to violence. "But it is his ideas and commitment to the Mr. Mandela was a central figure in the struggle that make even us youths regard formation of Umkhonto we Sizwe-the HON. ROBERT GARCIA him as our leader," he said. Spear of the Nation-the military wing of OF NEW YORK REVOLUTION WILL SET HIM FREE the African National Congress, and he IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES "Anyhow," he added, "I do not worry became its first commander. On one of his Thursday, September 5, 1985 about not knowing what Mandela looks like trips outside South Africa, he was said to right now, because the day has come closer have visited Algeria, to organize training Mr. GARCIA. Mr. Speaker, in today's where I will see him with my own eyes." bases, and to have undergone training. The New York Times, Alan Cowell discusses "If the system does not free him," he said, name of Umkhonto we Sizwe is feted, still, Nelson Mandela and his importance- to "the people's revolution will set him free. in the songs that young blacks sing at the South Mrica's black community. Mr. Man And that day is not far away." gravesides of slain township activists. dela is unyielding with his faith in his Mr. Mandela is seen as an inspiration In August 1962 the authorities caught up whose physical presence means less than his with Mr. Mandela and, after the leadership people and his cause. Mr. Mandela brings a of Umkhonto we Sizwe was rounded up, put sense of dignity and incredible strength to message and example. "He is the symbol of our struggle," said him on trial for sabotage. His final address the struggle of South Mrica's majority Mzwakhe Kubheka, 19, a high school stu to the court that jailed him for life is community to free itself from the bonds of dent. "To me he is like Jesus Christ." burned into the soul of black resistance. apartheid. "How many people would rather stay in "There comes a time, as it came in my I hope my colleagues find Mr. Cowell's jail than be free at the cost of their integri life," he said, "when a man is denied the article as inspiring as I did. ty," he said. right to live a normal life, when he can only NELSON MANDELA "For the struggle to go on," he said, "we live the life of an outlaw because the Gov do not need Mandela to be around. We, the ernment has so decreed to use the law to <By Alan Cowell) youths, will do the job the way our leader impose a state of outlawry upon him. I was JoHANNESBURG, September 4.-Percy would have wanted. And he knows that we driven to this situation, and I do not regret Qoboza remembers the days fondly. One of are carrying on from where he left off 23 having taken the decisions that I did take." them goes like this: years ago." THE CHOICE IS NOT OURS In the early 1960's the man was on the Mr. Mandela was jailed and was supposed Earlier, when Mr. Mandela launched vio run from the police, and Mr. Qoboza, a to become, thus, a nonperson, banished, ini young black reporter, was following the lent resistance to white rule, a pamphlet tially to the harshness of Robben Island, off was circulated by his organization saying: story. Cape Town. But the myth was stronger "He would disappear and then turn up, "The choice is not ours. It has been made by than the prison walls and it grew across the the nationalist Government which has re somewhere, at a public telephone, and call generations. in with a statement. Of course the police jected every peaceable demand by the would trace the call, but by that time, he SON OF TEMBU CHIEF people for rights and freedom." was long gone. We had our own pimpernel." There were other heroes, but many have At his trial, Mr. Mandela talked of "the Mr. Qoboza is now a prominent newspaper been detailed or otherwise neutralized. Mr. ideal of a democratic and free society in editor. The man he was talking about is Mandela filled the emptiness at the heart of which all persons live together in harmony Nelson Mandela, the imprisoned leader of blacks yearning for leadership. and with equal opportunities." the African National Congress, whose days Who, then, is he? "It is an ideal which I hope to live for and as the pimpernel ran out in August 1962, Mr. Mandela was born in 1918, the eldest to achieve," he said. "But if need be, an when he was arrested for sabotage because son of a chief of the Tembu people, inherit ideal for which I am prepared to die." of his role in the militant wing of the con ing a mantle of royal self-confidence that Mr. Mandela is visited regularly only by gress. He has been in prison ever since and defied white relegation of blacks to second his immediate family. This year, however, has become, through incarceration and class status. He studied law at South Afri the authorities have permitted some outsid steadfast defiance from within the prison ca's Fort Hare University, an academy ers to see him. walls, South Africa's leading black hero, the whose alumni include Robert Mugabe, now He is, said Lord Bethell, a British peer and man, according to a recent newspaper Prime Minister of Zimbabwe. member of the European Parliament, who survey, whom 90 percent of the nation's As in Mr. Mugabe's case, the university saw Mr. Mandela in January, "a six-foot black people want unconditionally freed. seems to have honed political views. Mr. tall, lean figure with silvering hair, an im SYMBOLIZES BLACK DE'.l'ElUIIINATION Mandela is said to have been expelled from peccable olive-green shirt and well-creased "I think," Mr. Qoboza said in an interview it for organizing a student strike. navy blue trousers." today, "that he symbolizes black determina In Johannesburg, he and Oliver Tambo, "I am in good health," Mr. Mandela said tion to be free." now the exiled leader of the African Nation at the time. "It is not true that I have The symbolism, from a black nationalist al Congress, formed a law practice. In 1944 cancer. It is not true that I have had a toe point of view, is evident. Pollsmoor prison, Mr. Mandela joined the congress, then far amputated. I get up at 3:30 A.M. every outside Cape Town, where Mr. Mandela is less demanding of white concessions than it morning, do two hours of physical exercise, held, represents the system against which is today, and played a leading role in its work up a good sweat. Then I read and he rebels. His rebellion, from within, is the nonviolent campaigns against apartheid in study during the day. ambiguous emblem of defiance in a society the 1950's. A MEAN LEFT HOOK where the rulers seem to call the shots. Those actions caused him to be detailed, The reference to exercise does not sur The enigma, however, seems to be that, along with 155 others, in 1957, in a four prise Mr. Qoboza. If Mr. Mandela had not invisible and unheard, removed by white au year treason trial that ended, in 1961, with become a politican, he said, he would have thority from black political activism. Mr. all the defendants being acquitted. That was become a great athlete. "When the world Mandela has captured the spirit and devo the start of the pimpernel whose credentials had not discovered jogging, he had," Mr. tion not only of those who knew him at the were strengthened, Mr. Qoboza said, by the Qoboza said. "As an amateur boxer, he time of his incarceration, but also of those fact that Mr. Mandela never chose self-exile packed one of the meanest left hooks in the who have, in the last year of upheaval, as to secure comfortable dissent. business.'' sumed the custodianship of black resist KILLINGS AT SHARPEVILLE Samuel Dash, Chief counsel to the Senate ance-the teen-agers who were not yet born It was at this time, too, that a great Watergate Committee and now a professor when he was jailed. change came over black resistance in South of law at Georgetown University, saw Mr. If Mr. Mandela, 67 years old, was released Africa. On March 21, 1960, the police shot Mandela earlier this year and wrote, in The tomorrow, said Michael Morake, 18, in an dead 69 black protesters in Sharpeville, a New York Times Magazine, that "he is a interview in Soweto, Johannesburg's sprawl- black township south of Johannesburg, and, tall, slim, handsome man" who appears "vig- e This "bullet" symbol identifies statements or insertions which are not spoken by the Member of the Senate on the floor. Boldface type indicates words inserted or appended, rather than spoken, by a Member of the House on the floor. September 5, 1985 EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS 22981 orous and healthy, with a calm, confident all political prisoners and allows the exiles point in the lives of many in the Wyoming manner and dignified bearing that seemed to return, then Nelson and other A.N.C. Valley. incongruous in our prison surroundings." leaders would be prepared to sit down and "Indeed, throughout our meeting, I felt talk." Mr.

Load more