Mandela Won’t Accept Conditions on Freedom, His Wife Says

Winnie Mandela, wife of imprisoned black nationalist leader Nelson Mandela, on Friday dismissed as unacceptable a rumored South African government offer to release her husband if he agrees to go into exile.

“He will not accept any conditions for his freedom,” she declared on returning from talks with him in a Cape Town hospital where he is recuperating from surgery. “He is adamant on this. He will not agree to go into exile as a condition for his release. The government should know this.”

A spokesman for President Pieter W. Botha again denied that Mandela was about to be released despite a week of speculation that an agreement was near under which the black activist would be freed and flown to Lusaka, Zambia, headquarters of the outlawed African National Congress. “There is no truth in these rumors,” the spokesman said. “None whatsoever.”

So widespread has the speculation become, however, that Mandela, head of the African National Congress until his arrest in 1962, consulted with his lawyers for nearly three hours Friday morning. They declined to disclose what was discussed because of prison regulations requiring that such talks, whatever their content, be kept secret to prevent prisoners from making political statements.

But George Bizos, a senior civil rights lawyer here, did comment: “We have no idea when Mr. Mandela will be released. We do not know at this stage what the future holds.”

With little indication of the origin of the rumors, most political analysts have speculated that Mandela, 67, might not be as healthy as reported after the removal of an enlarged prostate gland three weeks ago and the earlier discovery of cysts on his liver and kidneys. As a result, they suggest, the government might want to release him on parole so that he does not die in prison and become an even greater martyr in the struggle against apartheid.

Fully Recovered

But Bizos and Winnie Mandela both insisted that he has recovered fully from the surgery, is well enough to return to Pollsmoor Prison outside Cape Town and is puzzled himself about why he remains in his heavily guarded suite in a suburban whites-only hospital.

Other theories suggest that the government has concluded that Mandela’s release, provided he went abroad, would ease international pressure on South Africa and reduce the chances for new economic sanctions on it. But most analysts believe that Mandela would, in fact, rally more support for the African National Congress overseas and unify blacks at home behind the congress, making his release a serious risk for the government.

“We are aware of all the speculation, and we have to take it seriously because of its really unprecedented intensity,” Winnie Mandela said. “But we honestly know nothing of the government’s intentions, not a single thing. All we can do is wait.”

Has Rejected Freedom

Mandela, who is serving a life sentence for attempting to overthrow the minority white government here and for sabotage, rejected a public offer by Botha earlier this year to release him if he would renounce violence in the struggle against apartheid.

“I cherish my own freedom dearly, but I care even more for your freedom,” he said in a February message to his supporters setting his own terms for his release from prison. “I cannot sell my birthright, nor am I prepared to sell the birthright of the people to be free. . . . I cannot and will not give any undertaking at a time when I and you the people are not free. Your freedom and mine cannot be separated.”

Meanwhile, police headquarters in Pretoria reported Friday that at least 13 blacks had died Thursday in Mamelodi, a black ghetto township outside the capital, after police opened fire with shotguns, pistols and rifles on a crowd estimated to number 50,000. The crowd was demanding the withdrawal of troops and white police from the town and lower rents and utility charges.

Death Toll May Reach 20

Originally, police said that only two had been killed despite detailed accounts from witnesses who said at least 10 were dead. Community leaders believe the final death toll might be as high as 20 as more bodies are found and some of the critically injured die. This would make it one of the bloodiest incidents in 15 months of civil unrest in which about 900 people, mostly blacks, have now died.

Two more blacks were reported killed Friday--both victims of continuing political rivalries among blacks themselves, largely on the issue of how to fight apartheid and who should lead the struggle. In Soweto, outside Johannesburg, a woman died after her house was set on fire by arsonists, and in Queenstown in eastern Cape province a black man was stabbed to death by a mob, bringing to 20 the number who have been killed in the small town in the past two weeks.

Police also reported that they detained 404 more people last week under emergency regulations that permit them to make arrests without charge and hold a person indefinitely in solitary confinement; 1,080 people are still held out of 5,971 detained over the last four months, according to police.

Two children, one 11 and the other 13, were released from detention in Cape Town on Friday after strong protests, but two others, ages 12 and 13, and perhaps four more are still being held, according to local civil rights activists.