He's accused of selling the film rights to the ANC hero's funeral - and digging up the bodies of his sons to move to a money-spinning museum. Can anyone stop Nelson's womanising grandson tarnishing his legacy?
Mandla Mandela, grandson of former South African
President Nelson Mandela, is pictured draped in a huge lion skin. Amid
public outcry he bigamously married a French 19-year-old
There, a tall, frail man is periodically spotted wandering about the grounds.
The owner of this house is no ordinary individual. His name is Rholihlahla ‘Nelson’ Mandela, the first black president of South Africa and a figure revered around the world.
The 94-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner, who was jailed for 27 years by the white apartheid government, was well enough to have a small private party last month to celebrate his birthday, where he met guests with a blanket round his knees.
Mandela has repeatedly suffered chronic stomach pains. He has undergone an ‘investigative laparoscopy’ — where a tiny camera is inserted into the abdomen — to determine the source. The results remain secret.
Yet, while Mandela rests, he can find little peace. The reason is his controversial grandson, who is at the centre of a sex scandal that has set South Africa agog.
Amid a public outcry, Mandla Mandela, 38, had already bigamously married a French 19-year-old called Anais Grimand last year.
He then presented the results of their liaison — a little boy born in September last year — to Nelson Mandela at his home in the village of Qunu.
Following the traditions of the Xhosa people, Mandela was asked to choose a name for his great-grandson: Qheya Zanethemba Mandela was his choice, granting the famous surname to another generation.
There is just one problem: it has now emerged that the baby boy was fathered by one of Mandela’s other grandsons, who had been having a secret affair with his brother’s young wife.
In an astonishing statement, Mandla, himself a notorious womaniser, disclosed that he had discovered the affair — and sent his wife packing.
‘The Mandela family has sent my wife back to her home after it was discovered that she has been having an affair with one of my brothers,’ the statement said.
‘The revelation of this affair has come as a shock to me and the rest of my family. It has been made more painful because it is my own brother who is at the centre of the crisis. I confirm that this affair resulted in a son.’
So who is the father? Ndaba Mandela, one of Mandla’s three brothers, was quick to deny rumours that he is the family member who impregnated his sister-in-law.
‘Nobody knows who the father is, but I can confidently confirm that it was not me,’ he said. ‘I have never touched her in a physical or sexual way.’
As Mandla’s wife fled to her home on the French-speaking Reunion Island, off the east coast of Africa, it emerged that she had taken the child with her.
Under Xhosa tradition, Mandla has been told by other members of the family that he must convene a meeting with Nelson Mandela and apologise and explain himself.
This will be familiar territory for Mandla.
He is aged just 38, but has already married three times and is notorious for his enormous sexual appetite and party lifestyle.
Nelson Mandela and his grandson Mandla as they
attend a memorial service for his son Makgatho Mandela, who died of AIDS
in 2005. Nelson Mandela is a figure revered around the world. His
grandson is at the centre of a sex scandal
In a case that has outraged veterans of the black liberation movement, Mandla’s first wife, whom he has never bothered to divorce, has also attacked his ‘flamboyant lifestyle, his ongoing affairs with other women and his expressed intention to marry others during the time we are still married’.
Far worse, in what’s regarded as sacrilege here in South Africa, he has been behind repeated attempts to cash in on his grandfather’s life — and, even more cynically, has made it clear that he plans to capitalise on every aspect of Mandela’s death when it eventually comes.
He has also been accused of stealing land to build his own lucrative Mandela memorial site, in direct conflict with preparations being made by the official Nelson Mandela Trust.
Of course, such behaviour is something that Nelson Mandela has long abhorred. Ever since he was elected South Africa’s first black president in 1994, he has gone to extraordinary lengths to prevent people from besmirching or misusing the Mandela name.
In one famous case, his lawyers forced the closure of a restaurant in Cape Town after the owners called it ‘Nelson’s Chicken and Gravy Land’, with specials on the menu including the ‘Nelson Liberation’ family meal.
In another, he took legal action against Denis Sassou-Nguesso, the despotic leader of Congo- Brazzaville, after fake quotes adorned the front cover of his autobiography stating that Mandela thought him a ‘great African, who worked tirelessly to free oppressed peoples from their chains’.
Like his grandfather before him, Mandla Mandela is a senior member of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), which came to power after the struggle to overthrow South Africa’s white apartheid regime. But there all similarities cease.
Mandla Mandela and his French wife Anais Grimand who married last year in a traditional ceremony
There, in a disturbing display, he joined other ANC leaders who quaffed French champagne at a football stadium in front of 45,000 impoverished black township dwellers, telling them to take photographs of ‘the leaders now enjoying the champagne, which of course they do so on your behalf through their lips’.
But the true of extent of his ambition became clear when he launched a legal battle to dig up sacred graves — in breach of tribal traditions — on land where his grandfather was born. In their place, Mandla plans to build a timeshare hotel, a stadium and a conference centre. His potential earnings could run into millions.
Indeed, Mandla’s thirst for more wealth is behind many of his current woes and has prompted his moves to build a rival ‘Mandela memorial’ on the same land — less than a mile from his grandfather’s own museum.
Mandela’s official project also has private chalets for tourists, along with a restaurant and a viewing deck over the fields where Nelson once played.
Laying down the gauntlet to the Nelson Mandela Trust — a body supported by his grandfather and set up to safeguard his legacy — Mandla is trying to usurp their projects and divert the influx of tourists expected after his grandfather dies towards his own development.
And he is prepared to take ruthless measures to achieve his goals. I watched earlier this year as Mandla swept into court in a fleet of vehicles to face accusations that he had stolen land owned by more than 100 people for his scheme. He was accompanied by groups of noisy young male supporters, nicknamed the ‘WaBenzi’ tribe — for their love of Mercedes Benz limousines.
In an expensive designer suit, rather than the traditional animal skins he wore for his latest wedding, a belligerent Mandla told the court that the claims were ‘scurrilous, ill-founded, defamatory and inflammatory’ — and said the families had signed over the land to him.
Incredibly, with an eye on the day his grandfather dies, he has also quietly removed the graves of Nelson Mandela’s own children from their burial site near the official Nelson Mandela museum and moved them to the location of his rival ‘Mandela memorial’.
As his henchmen blocked roads, a team were spotted last year wearing white gloves and surgical masks, busy removing the remains of Mandela’s children: Makaziwe, who died as a baby in 1948; son Thembekile, who died in a car crash in 1969, and Makgatho (Mandla’s father), who died from Aids in 2005.
After the ANC spent millions upgrading the roads around Qunu, where Mandela went to school and where it was always assumed he would be buried, the exhumation of his children has fuelled suspicions that his grandson is trying to ensure Mandela is buried on Mandla’s land.
The evicted families told me they were shocked to find the graves of their ancestors fenced off ready for bulldozers to move in and begin work. ‘These are our forefathers’ graves and should be respected,’ one said.
When Mandela (pictured) was too ill earlier this
year to attend the African National Congress's centenary celebrations,
Mandla stepped in to represent him
To protect the deal, he launches regular sweeps of the surrounding hills near his grandfather’s home to ensure no other cameras have been hidden, which would ruin his exclusive film footage.
One village elder told me: ‘This thing with Mandla is out of hand. He is tarnishing the Mandela name with all these wives he marries and wants to marry. He won’t listen to anyone.’
Mandla, meanwhile, refuses to speak to the media, local or international. He was last night refusing to answer calls.
‘We’re deeply worried and saddened,’ says Mlibo Qhoboshiyane, the ANC’s respected local chairman. ‘Mandela is still alive. I don’t think he is taking these things well. For his sake, we’ll pray for his clan to attend to this matter urgently.’
With life expectancy in South Africa dropping from 56 to 51 since Mandela stepped down in 1999, protests over lack of jobs for the poor have become a daily feature of life here. Even the country’s unions, traditionally supportive of the ANC, have expressed outrage over the ‘predatory black elite’ emerging at its heart.
A figure of respect: Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton meets with Nelson Mandela, 94, at his home in Qunu, South
Africa, earlier this month
Back at Mandela’s own official museum near Qunu, a section dedicated to his struggle against oppression includes a copy of his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech: ‘Let it never be said by future generations that indifference, cynicism or selfishness made us fail to live up to the ideals of humanism set by the Nobel Prize.’
Sadly, the fear is that Mandela’s rallying cry will ultimately survive only as long as he does. Certainly, his words seem a world away from the self-indulgent life of luxury and sexual gratification now being pursued by his grandson.
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