{"id":12519,"date":"2014-01-06T10:46:20","date_gmt":"2014-01-06T10:46:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=12519"},"modified":"2014-01-06T10:46:20","modified_gmt":"2014-01-06T10:46:20","slug":"thatcher-did-not-mention-mandela-in-official-discussions-with-pw-botha","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=12519","title":{"rendered":"Thatcher did not mention Mandela in official discussions with PW Botha"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_12520\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-12520\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/ThatcherBotha.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12520\" alt=\"PW Botha and Margaret Thatcher\" src=\"http:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/ThatcherBotha-300x165.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"165\" srcset=\"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/ThatcherBotha-300x165.jpg 300w, https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/ThatcherBotha-70x40.jpg 70w, https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/ThatcherBotha.jpg 544w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 85vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-12520\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">PW Botha and Margaret Thatcher<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Margaret Thatcher made no mention of Nelson Mandela during the only formal talks she held with South Africa\u2019s leader PW Botha, documents released recently reveal.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The papers blow apart recent Tory boasts that she helped end apartheid &#8211; and her own claim that she had pressed for his release at the summit.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Instead Thatcher relegated the issue to a short, private chat with Botha before the June 1984 talks officially got under way. No notes were taken so there is no evidence of what was discussed.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The then PM had been urged by the British Foreign Office to raise Mandela\u2019s imprisonment officially during the four-hour minuted formal discussions.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">But Thatcher, who objected to sanctions against Botha\u2019s regime and had branded Mandela a terrorist, failed to do so.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Thatcher\u2019s own account says Mandela\u2019s incarceration was \u201cnoted\u201d during a private audience on \u201csensitive issues\u201d.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">But her adviser John Coles stated: \u201cNo note-takers were present. Mr Botha said he could not interfere with the South African judicial process.\u201d &#8211; extract from The Mirror<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Margaret Thatcher made no mention of Nelson Mandela during the only formal talks she held with South Africa\u2019s leader PW Botha, documents released recently reveal. The papers blow apart recent Tory boasts that she helped end apartheid &#8211; and her own claim that she had pressed for his release at the summit. Instead Thatcher relegated &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=12519\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Thatcher did not mention Mandela in official discussions with PW Botha&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12520,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,3],"tags":[7940,327,740,3548,2963],"class_list":["post-12519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","category-news","tag-john-coles","tag-mandela","tag-margaret-thatcher","tag-pw-botha","tag-terrorist"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/ThatcherBotha.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12519"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12521,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12519\/revisions\/12521"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}