Andrew Mlangeni. Picture: SUNDAY TIMES
Andrew Mlangeni. Picture: SUNDAY TIMES

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ANDREW Mlangeni, Nelson Mandela’s former Robben Island fellow inmate and co-accused in the infamous Rivonia trial, says he does not know anything about the late statesman’s membership of the South African Communist Party (SACP).

Speaking at a media briefing on Monday, Mr Mlangeni, 88, said those who claimed Mandela had been a member of the party were "perhaps better qualified" to comment.

Mandela passed away at his family home in Houghton in Johannesburg on Thursday night.

A day later, the SACP and the African National Congress (ANC), even though it had always been denied, confirmed in their tributes to Mandela that the anti-apartheid icon had, at the time of his arrest in 1962, been a member of the SACP’s central executive committee. There had been much debate about the issue among historians and academics.

Speaking to BDlive, SACP deputy general secretary Solly Mapaila on Friday said Mandela had been a member of the party but it was denied at the time for "political reasons".

"There was a huge offensive by the oppressive apartheid regime at the time against communists," he said. "They portrayed the ANC as a communist organisation, but it was not."

Mr Mapaila said all the Rivonia triallists were members of the SACP.

The Rivonia Trial took place in South Africa between 1963 and 1964. Ten leaders of the ANC were tried for 221 acts of sabotage, public violence and bombings.

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The trial was named after Rivonia, the suburb of Johannesburg where 19 ANC leaders were arrested at Liliesleaf Farm, used as a hideout for the ANC.

"At his arrest in August 1962, Nelson Mandela was not only a member of the then underground South African Communist Party, but was also a member of our party’s central committee," the SACP said in a statement reacting to Mandela’s death.

"To us as South African communists, comrade Mandela shall forever symbolise the monumental contribution of the SACP in our liberation struggle."

However, Mr Mlangeni, who in 1945 joined the youth wing of the SACP, the Young Communist League, said on Monday he had "never seen Madiba there".

Mr Mlangeni spent more than 26 years as a political prisoner on Robben Island, about a year less than Mandela — who was released in 1990 and became South Africa’s first democratic president in 1994.

Mr Mapaila said last Friday that the contribution of communists to the struggle for freedom in South Africa had few parallels in the history of our country.

"After his release from prison in 1990, comrade Madiba became a great and close friend of the communists till his last days," he said.

At the time Mandela was released from prison, the Soviet Union was crumbling and there was "too much negativity around the Soviet system", said Mr Mapaila.

Mr Mlangeni on Monday praised Mandela, his "comrade and friend", for showing "unwavering humanism".

"It is with a heavy heart that I have to bear the pain of witnessing not only Madiba, but many others, pass," he said. "A part of me is gone with his passing."