On the 20th anniversary of Nelson Mandela's release from prison, David Cameron is under pressure to apologise for a visit he made to apartheid South Africa.
On the 20th anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s release from prison, the Prime Minister said in a statement that Mandela remains an example that gives people the hope to “struggle anew” for “justice and freedom for all”.
David Cameron, however, was under pressure to apologise for a visit he made to apartheid South Africa from former anti-apartheid campaigners Richard Caborn MP and ex-TUC general secretary Norman Willis.
It emerged in a biography last year that he visited the country as the guest of anti-sanctions lobbyists in 1989, when Mr Mandela was still in jail. According to PA:
“Your trip, paid for by lobbyists against sanctions, was a long time ago,” [Caborn and Willis] wrote. “But it was then, and is now, a question of values and judgment.”
Since the details of this trip became public, you have refused to comment on it, refused to explain why you had to keep it quiet and refused to apologise for your actions.
“We hope that on the anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s release, you will set the record straight and do what is right.”
Last year, Peter Hain told the Independent on Sunday that Cameron’s trip was a “sanctions-busting jolly“.
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14 Responses to “Will Cameron apologise for his visit to apartheid South Africa?”
johnjones
Will the Labour Party, the TUC et al apologise for their close association with Jack Jones a former KGB agent? After all Gordon was a protege of Brother Jack.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/5200809/Former-KGB-colonel-says-he-paid-late-union-leader-Jack-Jones-200-for-information.html
or indeed their close assocation with the KGB and Soviet Govt?. I seem to remember that in ’75 or ’76 the head of the KGB even spoke at the TUC conference.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1225637/How-Kremlin-hijacked-Labour-Diary-Kremlin-insider-reveals-hold-Soviets-Labour-politicians.html
After all the criminal police state of the USSR was just as bad as Apartheid South Africa? No?
StopTheRight
RT @leftfootfwd Will Cameron apologise for his visit to apartheid South Africa? http://is.gd/8fdgl
Joel Davies
RT @leftfootfwd Will Cameron apologise for his visit to apartheid South Africa? http://is.gd/8fdgl (via @StopTheRight)
David Taylor
Will Cameron apologise for his visit to apartheid South Africa? My latest @leftfootfwd post http://tinyurl.com/yj2eaya
David Taylor
It is worth quoting Peter Hain in full here:
Peter Hain, the former Cabinet minister and prominent anti-apartheid campaigner, said: “David Cameron asks us to judge a leader’s character – well, Gordon Brown at this time was active in the anti-apartheid movement, while Cameron was enjoying a sanctions-busting jolly. That is a measure of character.
“This just exposes his hypocrisy because he has tried to present himself as a progressive Conservative, but just on the eve of the apartheid downfall, and Nelson Mandela’s release from prison, when negotiations were taking place about a transfer of power, here he was being wined and dined on a sanctions-busting visit.
“This is the real Conservative Party, shown by the fact that his colleagues who used to wear ‘Hang Nelson Mandela’ badges at university are now sitting on the benches around him. Their leader at the time Margaret Thatcher described Mandela as a terrorist.”