Winnie Mandela Refuses U.S. Aid : Rebuffs $10,000 Offer to Help Rebuild Firebombed Home

The wife of jailed anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela today refused a $10,000 offer from the U.S. government to help rebuild her firebombed home and accused the Reagan Administration of condoning apartheid.

Winnie Mandela also told an illicit news conference that South African blacks are no longer willing to consider sharing power with whites.

Mandela said she was turning down the $10,000 gift from the U.S. Human Rights Fund because of what she called U.S. support for apartheid, South Africa’s system of racial segregation. She said, however, that she will accept contributions toward the rebuilding of her home from individual U.S. senators and that she was grateful for messages of support from many Americans.

Frank Wisner, deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs, made the offer last week after the attack which badly damaged Winnie Mandela’s home in the Orange Free State town of Brandfort. She was not home when arsonists destroyed the house but immediately afterward accused security police of setting the fire.

Congressional Allocation

The $10,000 would have come from the Human Rights Fund, a $1-million allocation from Congress last year for community programs and other efforts in South Africa.

At the news conference Mandela said, “Our people are angry that the Reagan and Thatcher administrations . . . continue to condone the activities of the South African government.

“If they had any feelings for the downtrodden and oppressed majorities in our country they would forthwith end their policies of gentle persuasion or constructive engagement. It appears that their interests in this country outweigh their so-called abhorrence of apartheid.”

Mandela also said black leaders felt that South Africa had passed the stage where the nation’s black and white leaders could sit down at a national convention to negotiate a way of sharing power.

“The only aspect that can be discussed by the black people of this country and the ruling Afrikaner is the handing over of power,” she told reporters in the Johannesburg offices of her lawyer, Ismael Ayob.

Plea to Thatcher, Reagan

Mandela said the governments of President Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher should press for free elections in South Africa “so that the people may decide who will govern.”

Mandela is banned, which means she is restricted to a black township near the farming town of Brandfort. She had official permission to be in Johannesburg, but the news conference violated another condition of her banishment, which bars her from meeting with more than one person at a time.

Nelson Mandela has served more than 22 years of a life sentence for treason but remains the honorary leader of the outlawed African National Congress, which opposes white rule.

The Star newspaper reported earlier today that police fired into a crowd of stone-throwing youths Tuesday, killing one young girl.