Mandela Calls U.S. African Policy a Failure

Banned South African black leader Winnie Mandela, one of three winners of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award on Wednesday, charged that the Reagan Administration believes liberation of blacks in her country “will be a setback to its own sphere of influence.”

She dismissed U.S. policy toward South Africa as having “failed miserably,” and said: “Your government condemns us to a 20th Century slavery by echoing the propaganda of the racist regime” in South Africa.

Mandela, wife of jailed black leader Nelson Mandela, made the remarks in a filmed statement presented at the awards ceremony at Georgetown University.

Also presented the awards on what would have been Kennedy’s 60th birthday were the Rev. Allan Boesak, a mixed-race Dutch Reformed minister who founded the anti-apartheid United Democratic Front, and the Rev. Beyers Naude, a white South African who succeeded Bishop Desmond Tutu this year as secretary general of the South African Council of Churches.

Boesak also was not allowed to leave South Africa to accept the award. He was charged with subversion last month and released on bail with severe restrictions after his arrest in August for planning a mass march on the prison holding Nelson Mandela. Naude did attend the ceremony.

The $50,000 Kennedy award is given annually for human rights work. Kennedy’s widow, Ethel, presented a bust of the late senator to each winner or a representative.