Anti-apartheid revolutionary African leader Nelson Mandela’s first known television interview has been discovered nearly 60 years after it was recorded, The Nelson Mandela Foundation has said.
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The rare footage sees the iconic world leader deliver an impassioned interview during a break in his four-and-a-half year treason trial.
Standing in the capital Pretoria outside a synagogue which served as the trial courthouse, Mandela describes the aims of the African National Congress (ANC) that he led to eventual victory over apartheid rule.
The foundation on Thursday shared the grainy 24-second video. “We have always regarded it as wrong for one racial group to dominate another racial group”, he said. Mandela was acquitted in March 1961 and went into hiding shortly after.
“From the very beginning, the African National Congress set itself the task of fighting against white supremacy”.
According to the foundation, the recently resurfaced video was broadcast on 31 January 1961 by a Netherlands television broadcaster, AVRO. Widlake was taken to his secret hideout in Johannesburg to film the interview. South Africa was ruled by a regime that enforced apartheid -a policy of racial segregation and discrimination against non-whites-between 1948 and 1994, when Mandela was elected president following the overthrow of the regime. It is unclear who conducted the interview and the exact date was not immediately available.
Until now, it was believed the earliest television interview with Mandela was conducted in May 1961 by British broadcaster ITN.
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The rights holder, AVROTROS, has waived its licence fee for the Nelson Mandela Foundation and has authorised it to use the clip for one year.
