{"id":25379,"date":"2016-05-16T00:46:47","date_gmt":"2016-05-16T00:46:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/cia-spy-tip-off-led-to-mandela-arrest\/"},"modified":"2016-05-16T00:43:58","modified_gmt":"2016-05-16T00:43:58","slug":"cia-spy-tip-off-led-to-mandela-arrest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/cia-spy-tip-off-led-to-mandela-arrest\/","title":{"rendered":"CIA spy tip-off \u2018led to Mandela arrest\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{A tip from a CIA spy to authorities in apartheid-era South Africa led to Nelson Mandela\u2019s 1962 arrest, beginning the leader\u2019s 27 years behind bars, an article in the Sunday Times reported.}<\/p>\n<p>The newspaper cited comments reportedly made by Donald Rickard, a former US vice-consul in Durban and CIA operative, to British film director John Irvin.<\/p>\n<p>Irvin\u2019s new film, Mandela\u2019s Gun, about the months before the anti-apartheid icon\u2019s arrest, is due to be screened at the Cannes film festival later this week.<\/p>\n<p>Mandela was eventually freed from prison in 1990 and went on to become South Africa\u2019s president between 1994 and 1999 before dying in 2013 aged 95.<\/p>\n<p>An article by James Sanders, who said he was asked by Irvin to investigate the issue, said the director travelled to the US earlier this year and interviewed Rickard.<\/p>\n<p>Rickard explained how Mandela was arrested as he travelled between Durban and Johannesburg but did not explain how he had learnt where he would be.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI found out when he was coming down and how he was coming&#8230; that\u2019s where I was involved and that\u2019s where Mandela was caught,\u201d Rickard was quoted as saying.<\/p>\n<p>He added that Mandela was \u201ccompletely under the control of the Soviet Union\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe could have incited a war in South Africa, the United States would have to get involved, grudgingly, and things could have gone to hell,\u201d Rickard added.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were teetering on the brink here and it had to be stopped, which meant Mandela had to be stopped. And I put a stop to it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Zizi Kodwa, national spokesman of Mandela\u2019s ruling African National Congress (ANC) party, called the revelation \u201ca serious indictment\u201d but said it was nothing new.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe always knew there was always collaboration between some Western countries and the apartheid regime,\u201d Kodwa told AFP and claimed that, though the incident happened decades ago, the CIA was still interfering in South African politics.<\/p>\n<p>Rickard, who was reportedly employed by the CIA until 1978, died in March, two weeks after talking to Irvin.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-12316 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/dnposter0612a.jpg\" alt=\"Former South African President Nelson Mandela celebrates his 86th birthday with his wife Graca Machel ( L ) and ex -wife Winnie Madikizela Mandela ( R ) in his rural home town of Qunu in the Eastern Cape Province on 18 July 2004. Nelson Mandela&#039;s widow Graca Machel has given up her right to half his more than $4-million estate, an executor of his will said Tuesday.\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{A tip from a CIA spy to authorities in apartheid-era South Africa led to Nelson Mandela\u2019s 1962 arrest, beginning the leader\u2019s 27 years behind bars, an article in the Sunday Times reported.} The newspaper cited comments reportedly made by Donald Rickard, a former US vice-consul in Durban and CIA operative, to British film director John [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[228],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-25379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-afp"],"bylines":[{"id":228,"name":"AFP","slug":"afp","description":"Agence France-Presse is an international news agency headquartered in Paris. It is the oldest news agency in the world and one of the largest. ","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":71}],"contributors":[{"id":228,"name":"AFP","slug":"afp","description":"Agence France-Presse is an international news agency headquartered in Paris. It is the oldest news agency in the world and one of the largest. ","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":71}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25379\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25379"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=25379"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=25379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}