Mandela’s Wife to Get Senators’ Gift

A bipartisan group of a dozen senators contributed $6,000 Friday to help reconstruct the home of Winnie Mandela, wife of jailed South African black nationalist leader Nelson Mandela, which was extensively damaged earlier this week by a firebomb.

Accepting the aid for transmission to South Africa, Frank G. Wisner, deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs, said the senators’ “very touching gesture” would be augmented by about $10,000 in U.S. government funds to help rebuild a clinic adjoining the house in a black township in the Orange Free State.

Sen. Howard M. Metzenbaum (D-Ohio) said at a ceremony in the State Department lobby that the Senate gift probably would have been larger if it had been collected before the congressional recess began this month.

Metzenbaum said he solicited $500 apiece from his colleagues as “a statement of personal concern and caring” after news of the attack that badly damaged the Mandela dwelling and the adjacent clinic. Winnie Mandela has blamed government security forces for the firebombing.

“I had strong feelings about this woman,” who has been separated from her husband for 24 years, being firebombed, Metzenbaum said. “I thought there should be something besides official action to express our concern, and my colleagues agreed.” Contributors to the fund included Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.).