50

AT THE FORT I was being supervised by Colonel Minnaar, a courtly Afrikaner considered something of a liberal by his more verkrampte (hard-line) colleagues. He explained that he was placing me in the prison hospital because it was the most comfortable area and I would be able to have a chair and table on which I could prepare my case. While the hospital was indeed comfortable — I was able to sleep in a proper bed, something I had never done before in prison — the real reason for his generosity was that the hospital was the safest place to keep me. To reach it one had to pass through two impregnable walls, each with armed guards; and once inside, four massive gates had to be unlocked before one even reached the area where I was kept. There was speculation in the press that the movement was going to attempt to rescue me, and the authorities were doing their utmost to prevent it.

There had also been wild speculations, in the press and within the ANC, that I had been betrayed by someone in the movement. I knew that some people blamed G. R. Naidoo, my Durban host, a suggestion I believe was unfounded. The press trumpeted the notion that I had been betrayed by white and Indian Communists who were unsettled by my suggestions that the ANC must become more Africanist-oriented. But I believed these stories were planted by the government to divide the Congress movement, and I regarded it as malicious mischief. I later discussed the matter not only with Walter, Duma, Joe Slovo, and Ahmed Kathrada, but with Winnie, and I was gratified to see that they shared my feelings. Winnie had been invited to open the annual conference of the Transvaal Indian Youth Congress, and at my instigation she repudiated these rumors in no uncertain terms. The newspapers were filled with stories of her beauty and eloquence. “We shall not waste time looking for evidence as to who betrayed Mandela,” she told the audience. “Such propaganda is calculated to keep us fighting one another instead of uniting to combat Nationalist oppression.”

The most oft-cited story was that an American consular official with connections to the CIA had tipped off the authorities. This story has never been confirmed and I have never seen any reliable evidence as to the truth of it. Although the CIA has been responsible for many contemptible activities in its support of American imperialism, I cannot lay my capture at their door. In truth, I had been imprudent about maintaining the secrecy of my movements. In retrospect, I realized that the authorities could have had a myriad of ways of locating me on my trip to Durban. It was a wonder in fact that I wasn’t captured sooner.

I spent only a few days in the Fort’s hospital before being transferred to Pretoria. There had been no restrictions on visits in Johannesburg, and I had had a continuous stream of people coming to see me. Visitors keep one’s spirits up in prison, and the absence of them can be disheartening. In transferring me to Pretoria, the authorities wanted to get me away from my home turf to a place where I would have fewer friends dropping by.

I was handcuffed and taken to Pretoria in an old van in the company of another prisoner. The inside of the van was filthy and we sat on a greasy spare tire, which slid from side to side as the van rumbled its way to Pretoria. The choice of companion was curious: his name was Nkadimeng and he was a member of one of Soweto’s fiercest gangs. Normally, officials would not permit a political prisoner to share the same vehicle with a common-law criminal, but I suspect they were hoping I would be intimidated by Nkadimeng, who I assumed was a police informer. I was dirty and annoyed by the time I reached prison, and my irritation was aggravated by the fact that I was put in a single cell with this fellow. I demanded and eventually received separate space so that I could prepare my case.

I was now permitted visitors only twice a week. Despite the distance, Winnie came regularly and always brought clean clothes and delicious food. This was another way of showing her support, and every time I put on a fresh shirt I felt her love and devotion. I was aware of how difficult it must have been to get to Pretoria in the middle of the day in the middle of the week with two small children at home. I was visited by many others who brought food, including the ever-faithful Mrs. Pillay who supplied me with a spicy lunch every day.

Because of the generosity of my visitors I had an embarrassment of riches and wanted to share my food with the other prisoners on my floor. This was strictly forbidden. In order to circumvent the restrictions, I offered food to the warders, who might then relent. With this in mind I presented a shiny red apple to an African warder who looked at it and stonily rebuffed me with the phrase “Angiyifuni” (I don’t want it). African warders tend to be either much more sympathetic than white warders, or even more severe, as though to outdo their masters. But, a short while later, the black warder saw a white warder take the apple he had rejected, and changed his mind. Soon I was supplying all my fellow prisoners with food.

Through the prison grapevine, I learned that Walter had been brought to Pretoria as well, and although we were isolated from each other we did manage to communicate. Walter had applied for bail — a decision I fully supported. Bail has long been a sensitive issue within the ANC. There are those who believed we should always reject bail, as it could be interpreted that we were fainthearted rebels who accepted the racist strictures of the legal system. I did not think this view should be universally applied and believed we should examine the issue on a case-by-case basis. Ever since Walter had become secretary-general of the ANC, I had felt that every effort should be made to bail him out of prison. He was simply too vital to the organization to allow him to languish in jail. In his case, bail was a practical not a theoretical issue. It was different in my own case. I had been underground; Walter had not. I had become a public symbol of rebellion and struggle; Walter operated behind the scenes. He agreed that no application for bail should be made in my case. For one thing, it would not have been granted and I did not want to do anything that might suggest that I was not prepared for the consequences of the underground life I had chosen.

Not long after Walter and I reached this decision I was again transferred back to the hospital at the Fort. A hearing had been set for October. Little can be said in favor of prison, but enforced isolation is conducive to study. I had begun correspondence studies for my LL.B., a bachelor of laws degree allowing one to practice as an advocate. One of the first things I had done after arriving at Pretoria Local was to send a letter to the authorities notifying them of my intention to study and requesting permission to purchase a copy of the Law of Torts, part of my syllabus.

A few days later, Colonel Aucamp, commanding officer of Pretoria Local and one of the more notorious of prison officials, marched into my cell and in a gloating manner said, “Mandela, we have got you now!” Then he said, “Why do you want a book about torches, man, unless you plan to use it for your damn sabotage?” I had no idea what he was talking about, until he produced my letter requesting a book about what he called “the Law of Torches.” I smiled at this and he became angry that I was not taking him seriously. The Afrikaans word for “torch” is toorts, very similar to tort, and I explained to him that in English tort was a branch of law not a burning stick of wood that could be used to set off a bomb. He went away in a huff.

One day I was in the prison courtyard at the Fort doing my daily exercises, which consisted of jogging, running in place, push-ups, and sit-ups, when I was approached by a tall, handsome Indian fellow named Moosa Dinath whom I had known slightly as a prosperous, even flamboyant businessman. He was serving a two-year sentence for fraud. On the outside we would have remained acquaintances, but prison is an incubator of friendship. Dinath would often accompany me on my jogs around the courtyard. One day he asked whether I had any objection if he obtained permission from the commanding officer to be near me in the prison hospital. I told him that I would welcome it, but I thought to myself that the authorities would never permit it. I was wrong.

It was exceedingly odd that a convicted prisoner like Dinath was permitted to stay together with a political prisoner awaiting trial. But I said nothing, as I was glad to have company. Dinath was wealthy and had a private payroll for the prison authorities. In return for his money, he received many privileges: he wore clothes meant for white prisoners, ate their diet, and did no jail work at all.

One night, to my astonishment, I observed Colonel Minnaar, who was the head of prison, and a well-known Afrikaner advocate come to fetch him. Dinath then left prison for the night and did not come back again until the morning. If I had not seen it with my own eyes I would not have believed it.

Dinath regaled me with tales of financial shenanigans and corruption among cabinet ministers, which I found fascinating. It confirmed to me how apartheid was a poison that bred moral decay in all areas. I scrupulously avoided discussing with him any matters of a political or sensitive nature on the grounds that he might also have been an informer. He once asked me to tell him about my African trip and I simply glossed over it. In the end, Dinath pulled enough strings to speed up his release and left after serving only four months of his two-year sentence.

Escape serves a double purpose: it liberates a freedom fighter from jail so that he can continue to fight, but offers a tremendous psychological boost to the struggle and a great publicity blow against the enemy. As a prisoner, I always contemplated escape, and during my various trips to and from the commanding officer’s office, I carefully surveyed the walls, the movements of the guards, the types of keys and locks used in the doors. I made a detailed sketch of the prison grounds with particular emphasis on the exact location of the prison hospital and the gates leading out of it. This map was smuggled out to the movement with instructions to destroy it immediately after it was perused.

There were two plans, one hatched by Moosa Dinath, which I ignored; the second was conceived by the ANC and communicated to me by Joe Slovo. It involved bribes, copies of keys, and even a false beard that was to be sewn into the shoulder pad of one of my jackets brought to me in prison. The idea was that I would don the beard after I had made my escape. I carefully considered the escape plan and concluded that it was premature, and the likelihood of its failure was unacceptably high. Such a failure would be fatal to the organization. During a meeting with Joe, I passed him a note communicating my views. I wrote that MK was not ready for such an operation; even an elite and trained force would probably not be able to accomplish such a mission. I suggested that such a gambit be postponed until I was a convicted prisoner and the authorities were less cautious. At the end, I wrote, “Please destroy this after you have finished reading it.” Joe and the others took my advice about not attempting the escape, but he decided the note should be saved as a historical document, and it later turned up at a very unfortunate time.