Tag: Denis Goldberg

Another Mandela gold coin launched

Goldberg, left, ethnically cleansing South Africa
Goldberg, left, ethnically cleansing South Africa from ‘white oppression’

Denis Goldberg, together with the Rivonia trial accused returned to the site of their arrest exactly 50 years ago to launch, along with the SA Gold Coin Exchange, the Liliesleaf Rivonia Ten gold medallion, which was auctioned off on Tuesday night.

The group of aging terrorists met on Tuesday at Liliesleaf Farm in Sandton, where they were arrested in a dramatic raid by police on July 11, 1963 for their role in the voilent armed struggle.

On June 11, 1964, eight of the 10 people who were eventually charged were sentenced to life imprisonment.

The 81-year-old Goldberg said they were proud to have been part of the multi-cultural struggle against whites.

Goldberg, along with many, perpetuate the lie that black independent states within Southern Africa were somehow oppressive, while the similar black Commonwealth Bantustans of Swaziland and Lesotho were not.

The medallion fetched R50 000, more than double its worth of R23 000, at a gala dinner held at Tintswalo at Waterfall in Kyalami, say the launchers.

It features the names of the 10 on one side in the order of the accused – Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Goldberg, Govan Mbeki, Ahmed Kathrada, Lionel “Rusty” Bernstein, Raymond Mhlaba, James Kantor, Elias Motsoaledi and Mlangeni. An image of Mandela is on the other side.

Only 1 000 medallions will be minted.

The proceeds of the medallion will go to the Liliesleaf Memory and Legacy Educational Bursary Trust.

“Our struggle wasn’t against whites, we were fighting to destroy apartheid,” Andrew Mlangeni said, clearly finding it neccessary to explain away the obvious.

White farmers, mainly Afrikaners, have been murdered in their thousands since the ANC brought “freedom” to the country.

He said that if the ANC had not launched an armed Struggle when it did, he did not believe the country would not have thrived.

Liliesleaf chief executive Nicholas Wolpe said the medallion was to honour the selfless Rivonia Ten who fought for a life “free of tyranny”, but life expectancy in South Africa has fallen dramatically since the days of Verwoerd.

Goldberg added: “What makes us human, in the ubuntu sense of the word, is that when we see something wrong in society, we act to put it right. That is what Liliesleaf is honouring, a group of people who saw something wrong and were prepared to risk everything to put it right.”

‘Our Rivonia trial lit the flame of revolution’: Denis Goldberg

Denis Goldberg
Denis Goldberg

Three silver-haired men sat together and recalled a court case 50 years ago that rocketed their friend and fellow freedom fighter to fame. To one man in the group that friend is simply “Nel.”

To the rest of the world he is Nelson Mandela, Nobel Peace Prize winner, South Africa’s former president, and a man who spent 27 years in jail for a cause he told a court in 1964 that he was prepared to die for.

Mandela, hospitalized since June 8, remains in critical condition. A grandson, Ndaba Mandela, said Tuesday that his grandfather is “very much alive” and responds when spoken to, though he is on life support in the form of mechanical ventilation. Mandela turns 95 on July 18.

Thursday marks the 50th anniversary of an event known in South African history as the Raid on Liliesleaf, a simple home in a Johannesburg suburb of Rivonia that served as the nerve center of activists seeking to overturn the white racist rule of South Africa’s apartheid era. Those arrested in the raid were charged with sabotage. Mandela had already been convicted of separate charges and was later tried and sentenced with those from Liliesleaf.

Denis Goldberg, 80, was one of the grey-haired men recalling the raid at a memorial for the event Monday evening. South Africa’s apartheid government, playing Cold War politics to win U.S. support, labeled those arrested as terrorists and communists. But Goldberg said the trial allowed those prosecuted in what became known as the Rivonia Trial to get their anti-apartheid views out to the public.

“It was a failed revolution at the time, but it was the spark that lit the flame,” said Bob Hepple, who was arrested at Liliesleaf but fled to England and did not face trial. “It’s great having a vision of freedom but you have to act to get freedom. It doesn’t fall from the trees.”

Mandela had previously traveled to Algeria to receive training for guerrilla warfare – violence that he never personally carried out but a strategy that he determined should be pursued by the African National Congress.

Writings discovered by the apartheid police in the Liliesleaf raid showed that Mandela had carefully pondered and endorsed the use of violence against apartheid.

“This was a thinking man. This was not a hot-headed leader,” Goldberg said.

Goldberg is one of the select few family members and friends who have visited Mandela since he was hospitalized June 8. Goldberg’s words last week that Mandela was conscious and responsive came in contradiction to papers filed in a Mandela family court case that described the former president as being in a vegetative state.

Goldberg and two contemporaries were invited to see Mandela by Graca Michel, Mandela’s wife. Goldberg said that Graca sat the three down and told them what she thought they should know about Mandela’s condition.

Goldberg retains the liberal feistiness that would have been required for a white man fighting for freedom for his black countrymen in the 1960s. He told Machel he would share the information about Mandela with the world. “I fought for democracy and I’m going to speak out,” he said.

“And Graca Machel said, ‘Yes, do that,'” Goldberg said.

Goldberg said it’s sad to see an old friend – once a strong physical presence – lying in bed “with a tube down his throat.” Mandela, he said, never addressed him by name. Goldberg is 15 years younger than the former president.

“For me he’s Nel and I’m boy,” Goldberg said. – AP