Whites Lack Credentials on Democracy, Mandela Says

Whites shadowed by a history of colonialism have no right to teach Africans about democracy, Nelson Mandela said today during a visit to Kenya, which is under criticism from the West for its response to calls for a multi-party democracy.

Mandela’s comments at a thinly attended rally in Nairobi followed a turbulent period in Kenya.

A pro-democracy rally last Saturday calling for an end to the one-party state rule in Kenya triggered five days of bloody anti-government riots and looting. More than 20 people were killed and 1,000 arrested. Kenya also has detained 17 pro-democracy advocates.

Mandela, who praised President Daniel Arap Moi and Kenya for supporting the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, did not refer directly to recent events in Kenya. But he appeared indirectly to denounce criticism of Kenya by the United States, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and the United Kingdom.

“What right has the West, what right have the whites anywhere to teach us about democracy when they executed those who asked for democracy during the time of the colonial era?” the deputy leader of the African National Congress asked.

Mandela was referring to the way the British dealt with advocates of Kenya’s independence movement in the 1950s and 1960s. He paid homage to Col. Dedan Kimathi, executed by the British in 1956, and to Waruhiu Itote, “General China.” Both men were leaders of the anti-British Mau Mau movement in the 1950s.

“How many sons and daughters of Africa have paid with their own lives because all that they asked for was the right to determine their own affairs?” he said.

Looking frail and tired, Mandela, who had been suffering from mild pneumonia, arrived two hours late for the rally wearing a thick sweater under his suit.

Only about 15,000 people, many of them schoolchildren brought by their schools, came to the Moi soccer stadium to hear the symbolic leader of Africa’s oldest freedom-fighting movement speak. The stadium can house 60,000 people.