Mandela Sees No Early Out, Wife Reports

Black nationalist leader Nelson Mandela said he definitely will not be freed from prison this year, his wife, Winnie, reported after a five-hour birthday visit today.

“His exact words were, ‘There will be no release, definitely not this year,’ ” Winnie Mandela told reporters outside the Victor Verster prison farm north of Cape Town.

The African National Congress leader, jailed for life for plotting against white-minority rule, observed his 71st birthday today with an unprecedented visit by 16 members of his family.

Speculation Sparked

His July 5 meeting with President Pieter W. Botha has sparked speculation that the government might release him after September parliamentary elections for whites, Indians and people of mixed race. The black majority of 28 million has no vote in national affairs.

Winnie Mandela said her husband’s release has always been the last item on his agenda. “His own freedom is of no consequence. It is the freedom of the people he went to prison for,” she said.

She said he had briefly touched on his meeting Friday with five African National Congress colleagues who were sentenced with him in 1964 for founding and participating in activities of the ANC’s armed wing.

She said he told her that there was no specific significance to the meeting, but Winnie Mandela added, “Whatever Comrade Mandela does is in full consultation with the leadership behind bars and the ANC outside.”

The Mandela birthday party joined four generations spanning the two marriages of the world’s most famous political prisoner.

It was the first time the family had availed itself of the relaxed visiting conditions for close relatives announced last year by the Prisons Department.

Son by First Marriage

Among relatives who visited Mandela were Makgatho, a son by Mandela’s first wife, Evelyn, and Makgatho’s son, Mandla, 14, who is studying in neighboring Swaziland. Evelyn did not attend.

One of Evelyn’s daughters, Makaziwe Mandela-Amuah, arrived with her three children from the United States, where she is studying for a doctoral degree in anthropology at Amherst College in Massachusetts.

Winnie Mandela and her daughter, Zindzi, wore black, underlining the solemnity of the day that they had previously marked by fasting and praying at home.