Skip to main content

Nelson Mandela 'felt betrayed by Tony Blair over decision to join Iraq invasion' | World news | The Guardian

Nelson Mandela 'felt betrayed by Tony Blair over decision to join Iraq invasion' | World news | The Guardian: "Tony Blair, Nelson Mandela Nelson Mandela with Tony Blair in May 2007. Photograph: Jerome Delay/AP

Nelson Mandela felt so betrayed by Tony Blair's decision to join the US-led invasion of Iraq that he launched a fiery tirade against him in a phone call to a cabinet minister, it emerged today.

Peter Hain, a lifelong anti-apartheid campaigner who knows the ex-South African president well, said Mandela was 'breathing fire' down the line in protest at the 2003 military action.

The trenchant criticisms were made in a formal call to the minister's office, not in a private capacity, and Blair was informed of what had been said, Hain added. The details are revealed in Hain's new biography of Mandela.

'He rang me up when I was a Cabinet minister in 2003, after the invasion,' he told the Press Association. 'He said: 'A big mistake, Peter, a very big mistake. It is wrong. Why is Tony doing this after all his support for Africa? This will cause huge damage internationally.'

'I had never heard Nelson Mandela so angry and frustrated. He clearly felt very, very strongly that the decision that the prime minister had taken – and that I as a member of the cabinet had been party to – was fundamentally wrong, and he told me it would destroy all the good things that Tony Blair and we, as a government, had done in progressive policy terms across the world.'

Hain grew up in South Africa, where his anti-Apartheid campaigner parents knew Mandela, who he now describes as 'a friend and a hero'.

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Israeli school segregated Ethiopian students » Ethiopian Review

Israeli school segregated Ethiopian students » Ethiopian Review : "The placement of four Ethiopian girls in a separate class from their peers at a Petah Tikva grade school has sparked accusations of segregation on Tuesday morning following a report in Yediot Aharonot. According to ‘Hamerhav’ principal, Rabbi Yeshiyahu Granvich, complete integration of the girls was impossible. The reason being, said municipal workers, was that the students were not observant enough, nor did their families belong to the national-religious movement that the school was founded upon. Among the differences in the daily school life of the girls, a single teacher was responsible to teach them all of their subjects. Worse yet, the four were allotted separate recess hours and were driven to and from school separately. Such action has been labeled by observers as “apartheid.”"

  1 Million Dead in Iraq? 6 Reasons the Media Hide the True Human Toll of War -- And Why We Let Them    :      Information Clearing House: ICH

  1 Million Dead in Iraq? 6 Reasons the Media Hide the True Human Toll of War -- And Why We Let Them    :      Information Clearing House: ICH By John Tirman July 20, 2011 "Alternet" - - As the U.S. war in Iraq winds down, we are entering a familiar phase, the season of forgetting—forgetting the harsh realities of the war. Mostly we forget the victims of the war, the Iraqi civilians whose lives and society have been devastated by eight years of armed conflict. The act of forgetting is a social and political act, abetted by the American news media. Throughout the war, but especially now, the minimal news we get from Iraq consistently devalues the death toll of Iraqi civilians. Why? A number of reasons are at work in this persistent evasion of reality. But forgetting has consequences, especially as it braces the obstinate right-wing narrative of “victory” in the Iraq war. If we forget, we learn nothing. I’ve puzzled over this habit of reaching for the lowest possible estimates ...