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But from his prison cell near Cape Town, Nelson Mandela, leader of the outlawed African National Congress, told a reporter for the Washington Times that he saw "no room for peaceful struggle" in the fight against apartheid and that there was "no alternative" to violence. The charismatic black leader has spent 23 years in prison and has become the focus of a worldwide clamor for his release. Defying a government ban against talking to more than one person at a time, Mandela's wife Winnie publicly rejected a gift of $10,000 from the U.S. embassy in Pretoria to restore her home, which unidentified arsonists had gutted two weeks ago. To accept the money, she said, would imply her acceptance of U.S. policy toward South Africa.
In the dark mood inspired by Botha's defiant stance, the announcement in Cape Town by the Rev. Allan Boesak, the colored (mixed-race) president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, that he would lead a mass protest for the release of Nelson Mandela this week posed a potential for more bloodshed. A leading figure in the multiracial, antiapartheid United Democratic Front, Boesak predicted ominously that the protest action will "turn this country on its head." Sadly, without any help from his foes, President Botha had already achieved much the same end.