Latest News

Pilgrimage to the house where South Africa's history was rewritten

2010-02-11

(Image: Nelson Mandela and his then-wife Winnie salute cheering crowds upon his release from Victor Verster prison in 1990 - Getty Images).

It is an unremarkable-looking house, but tomorrow it will be at the heart of the commemorations marking 20 years since Nelson Mandela's release from prison.

His former wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, who held his hand as he walked out a free man on 11 February 1990, is expected to revisit the bungalow at Victor Verster prison near Paarl, and announce that it is to become a museum.

"We still owe Mandela so much," said Christo Brand, one of inmate 46664's closest former warders.

"When the government released him, their feeling was that he would not live long.

Before his release, he had had a prostate operation, there was water in his lungs and he was anaemic. He was old and had arthritis. We thought he would live another two years. I am so happy that he is still around."

Mr Brand, who in his career as a warder worked at the three prisons in which Mr Mandela spent his 26 years of captivity – Robben Island, Pollsmoor and Victor Verster – is credited with having taught the political prisoner Afrikaans.

"It was so touching, on the day Mandela was released, that he travelled into Cape Town and spoke to the crowd in my language," said the 50-year-old, who now works at the Robben Island Museum.

The island off Cape Town, where Mr Mandela spent 18 years, has become a tourist attraction. It receives about 300,000 visits a year from tourists who pay £20 for a boat trip and guided tour.

But since Robben Island ceased to be a prison in 1996 and became a museum the following year, it has been beset by management problems.

So severe has the neglect of the site been that it is now overrun with rabbits, and a massive culling programme is in progress.

Amid revelations that staff had stolen money from the gift shop and diesel from the Robben Island ferry, a new management was put in place, charged with salvaging the island's status as a Unesco World Heritage Site.

But the Victor Verster museum – named Madiba House after Mr Mandela's clan name – will be different, said Calvyn Gilfellan, a former political detainee.

"This house was not only Mandela's last home as a prisoner, it was also where intense negotiations were held on dismantling apartheid and creating our constitution.

Mandela was so attached to the importance of this place that, after his release, he had a copy of it built in his native village, Qunu.

"I would like to see the place evolve both into a museum and a centre for conflict resolution. I can well imagine African leaders sitting in that lounge just as Mandela and former President FW de Klerk did," said Mr Gilfellan, who is now a tourism official for the Western Cape.