Madiba Nelson Mandela turned 91 on July 18, 2009. The former President of the Republic of South Africa and ANC leader, was honored in Africa and throughout the world. Mandela was a political prisoner for over 27 years.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos
Metro UK
Nelson Mandela ‘breathed fire’ over Tony Blair’s decision to go to war in Iraq during a furious tirade to a government minister, it is revealed today.
The South African statesman felt so betrayed by the deployment of British troops to the country that he vented his fury in a phone call to Peter Hain, then a member of Mr Blair’s cabinet.
The former Welsh secretary said Mr Mandela felt all the humanitarian work of the Blair government in Africa and elsewhere was ‘blown out of the water’ by the military offensive.
Mr Hain reveals details of the formal call to his ministerial office in 2003 in a new biography of the former South African president, Mandela: The Story of a Universal Hero.
The former minister said of the conversation: ‘He said, “A big mistake, Peter, a very big mistake. Why is Tony doing this after all his support for Africa? This will cause huge damage internationally”.’
Mr Hain, who grew up in South Africa and describes Mr Mandela as a ‘friend and hero’, said he had never heard the former president ‘so angry and frustrated’. ‘He clearly felt very, very strongly that the decision the prime minister had taken – and that I as a member of the Cabinet had been party to – was fundamentally wrong,’ said Mr Hain.
‘He was virtually breathing fire down the phone on this and feeling a sense of betrayal.’
In his memoirs, Mr Blair said he and Mr Mandela got on well ‘partly because I treated him as a political leader and no saint’.
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