From the hills above a Tuscan-style villa in a remote region of SA, it is sometimes possible to get a glimpse of a private garden below.
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 SA and revered around the world.
The 94-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner, who was jailed for 27 years by the 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 suffered chronic stomach pains and undergone an “investigative laparoscopy” – a tiny camera 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 SA agog.
Amid a public outcry, Mandla Mandela, 38, 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: 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, 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.”
He is seldom out of the gossip columns or the law courts amid fears that the young pretender to the Mandela name is ruining all the good work of his grandfather.
In a case that has outraged veterans of the black liberation movement, Mandla’s first wife, whom he has never divorced, 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 in SA, he has been behind repeated attempts to cash in on his grandfather’s life.
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.
Such behaviour is something Nelson Mandela has long abhorred. Ever since he was elected in 1994, he has gone to great 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.
He also took legal action against Denis Sassou-Nguesso, the despotic leader of Congo-Brazzaville, after fake quotes adorned the cover of his autobiography saying 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 ANC, which came to power after the struggle to overthrow apartheid. But there all similarities cease.
When Mandela was too ill earlier this year to attend the ANC’s centenary celebrations in Bloemfontein, Mandla stepped in to represent him, joining other ANC leaders who quaffed French champagne at a football stadium in front of 45 000 impoverished 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.
Mandla’s apparent thirst for wealth may be behind many of his current woes and his moves to build a rival “Mandela memorial” on the same land – about a kilometre from his grandfather’s own museum.
Mandela’s official project also has private chalets for tourists, 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 seems 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.
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. “These are our forefathers’ graves and should be respected,” one said.
Branded a dictator by locals, Mandla has also been accused of already having sold the film rights to Mandela’s funeral to an un-named broadcaster.
To protect the deal, he is said to have 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 foreign.
“We’re deeply worried and saddened,” says Mlibo Qhoboshiyane, the ANC’s 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 SA 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. Even the country’s unions, traditionally supportive of the ANC, have expressed outrage over the “predatory black elite” that has emerged at its heart.
Mandla Mandela – who is reputed to earn R5.3 million a year from business ventures helped by his famous name – symbolises the huge gulf between ANC veterans from his grandfather’s generation, who want social justice and reconciliation, and younger members who appear to care more about lining their own pockets.
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. – Daily Mail