S. African Black Offers Truce Deal

Nelson Mandela, the imprisoned leader of South Africa’s black independence movement, said in a rare interview that his men would lay down their arms if South Africa agreed to negotiate with his outlawed African National Congress.

Mandela gave the interview to Lord Bethell, a Conservative member of the European Parliament. It appeared in a British newspaper, the Mail, on Sunday.

Jailed for life in the early 1960s after being convicted on sabotage and conspiracy charges, Mandela appeared fit and self-assured and had no serious complaints about conditions at his current place of confinement, Pollsmoor Prison.

However, Bethell quoted Mandela as saying that his first 10 years on Robben Island, an infamous maximum-security fortress off Cape Town, “were really very bad. We were physically assaulted. We were subjected to psychological persecution” and had to work for nine hours a day in a lime quarry.

Mandela, now 66, also was quoted as saying: “The armed struggle was forced on us by the government, and if they want us to give it up, the ball is in their court. They must legalize us, treat us like a political party and negotiate with us.”