Controversy Rings Mandela Gift

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — As a token of reconciliation, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela has given her wedding band from Nelson Mandela to a 13-year-old girl whose father’s job under apartheid was to destroy her reputation.

“I am not one that cries easily, but I was all choked up,” said Paul Erasmus, a former security police officer who has confessed to a dirty tricks campaign against Madikizela-Mandela, including leaks to local and foreign media about her alleged marital infidelity.

“It was a fantastic moment,” he said. “I was one of Mrs. Mandela’s worst enemies and nightmares, and for her to make a gesture like that to someone in my family is a massive honor.”

Critics of Madikizela-Mandela, however, said the gift was a calculated move to garner positive media attention in advance of national elections June 2. Madikizela-Mandela, who was fired by her then-husband from a government post in 1995, is a candidate for Parliament from the ruling African National Congress.

“We are a little cynical about this for the mere fact that Mrs. Mandela still owes the country for trips she has undertaken illegally,” said Juli Kilian, spokeswoman for the opposition National Party, referring to unapproved travel Madikizela-Mandela made in 1994 as a deputy minister. “Perhaps this is all part of the image she wants to portray to improve her chances to get a position in Cabinet in the next government.”

Erasmus and a spokesman for Madikizela-Mandela said the former wife of President Mandela spontaneously presented the gold ring to Erasmus’ daughter, Candice, last weekend at a birthday party for one of her granddaughters. Both said there was no intention to make the gift public, but the presentation of the gift was anonymously leaked to the Afrikaans language newspaper Beeld.

The double band had been given to Madikizela-Mandela by her husband on their wedding day in 1958. The couple were divorced in 1996 after being separated for four years. Madikizela-Mandela has blamed the collapse of her marriage on the police campaign against her.

“It was still on her hand, when she took it off and handed it to the girl,” said Sipho Zimba, an aide to Madikizela-Mandela. “It was not something she planned. It was something that she just felt like doing.”

Zimba said Madikizela-Mandela told Candice Erasmus to hold on to the ring as a reminder of South Africa’s troubled past--and as a symbol of its hopeful future. Madikizela-Mandela told the teenager to share their families’ story with her own grandchildren, he said.

“The Mandela marriage had been broken by her father,” Zimba said. “Because the marriage is no more, the feeling was to give the ring to Paul’s daughter so she could show her grandchildren what happened.”

Since admitting to his involvement in the dirty tricks campaign, Erasmus has become friendly with Madikizela-Mandela. They traveled together last year to Kenya to investigate claims of a cure for AIDS, and he is a frequent guest at Madikizela-Mandela’s home.

Erasmus said his son Dillon, 11, refers affectionately to Madikizela-Mandela as “Ouma,” the Afrikaans word for grandma. He said the two families share a tragic fate of apartheid: They both split up.

“My marriage broke up two years ago, and I dare say the political situation had a lot to do with it,” said Erasmus, whose family was sent overseas in a witness protection program when he first revealed his apartheid-era activities in the early 1990s. “My children were traumatized by this process. My daughter knows what I did to the Mandelas.

“Winnie is the one who came to me and my family and told them the day will come when it will all be over and we can work together as South Africans, not whites or blacks,” he said.

Kilian, the National Party spokeswoman, said Erasmus’ claim to have tarnished the Mandelas as part of a state-sponsored smear campaign is “hogwash.” She said Madikizela-Mandela tarnished herself by becoming an embarrassment to her husband.

Erasmus “is clearly now over-awed by this gesture. He is simply falling for it. He’s a sucker,” said Kilian, whose party ruled South Africa during the apartheid era of racial separation.