Mandela’s Home Gutted in Apparent Gang Dispute

The home that has belonged to Nelson Mandela and his family since the 1940s was gutted in an arson attack in the black township of Soweto on Thursday.

Police said the incident apparently involved a teen-gang dispute and was not aimed at the imprisoned leader of the African National Congress or his family. No arrests were made, and no injuries were reported.

Police Capt. Ruben Bloomberg said in Pretoria that 30 to 50 black high school students stoned Mandela’s home, doused it with gasoline and set it afire.

All the contents of the home, including framed wedding pictures and the family piano, were destroyed.

Youths in Dispute

Neighbors and black journalists said some attackers wore jackets of Daliwonga high school in Soweto and were involved in a dispute Wednesday with the young black “comrades” who guard the home.

Winnie Mandela, the wife of the imprisoned dissident and a prominent anti-apartheid activist in her own right, was headed for a news conference concerning detainees when she learned of the fire, which broke out about noon local time. Her daughter, Zinzi, 27, and her two grandchildren, who also live at the four-room home, were also away at the time.

But neighbors and journalists said some of the young blacks who often travel with Winnie Mandela and guard her home were at the house when the fire began.

State-of-emergency regulations restrict reporting about unrest, security force action, treatment of detainees, some forms of protest and a range of statements classified as subversive.

Winnie Mandela arrived by car about an hour later and viewed the blackened windows and burned furniture in the yard from inside the car. She then was driven to her nearby offices where she conducts social welfare projects.

Amrichand Soma, a Mandela family attorney, later told reporters that Nelson Mandela was notified of the fire at Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town, where he is serving a life term for sabotage and plotting to overthrow the white-dominated government.

Winnie Mandela has lived in the house periodically since she married Mandela in 1958. Last year, she built a mansion on a hill overlooking Soweto, a huge black township outside of Johannesburg, a few blocks from the burned home. But friends of Winnie Mandela said the new house is not habitable and she would stay with friends.

Meanwhile, South African authorities suspended at the last minute a controversial plan to set up a register of journalists as part of its crackdown on the news media.

Home Affairs Minister Stoffel Botha announced Thursday that he was temporarily suspending the curb, which triggered protests around the world.

His move came only three days before a deadline requiring local news agency journalists to register with the Home Affairs Ministry.

Botha’s announcement made clear Pretoria was not dropping the register but said he was temporarily suspending it pending further investigation of the matter.