Category: New York Daily News

  • Mandela Sworn in as Freedom Reigns

    By MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer | Wednesday, May 11, 1994 PRETORIA—Climaxing his journey from political prisoner to nation builder, Nelson Mandela assumed the office of president of South Africa yesterday vowing that “never again” would racial exploitation be tolerated. In a joyous ceremony that marked the end of the country’s pariah status…

  • BREAKING THE CHAINS

    By GENE MUSTAIN and MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writers | Sunday, April 3, 1994 JOHANNESBURG—Against a backdrop of hope and fear, a nation’s epic march toward democracy has entered a bloody home stretch. The people of South Africa—including, for the first time, the majority black population—will go to the polls later this month…

  • TAKE NOTE, AMERICANS_Lessons from Across the Sea

    By MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer | Sunday, April 3, 1994 Saraan Ajaye did not even know South Africa was a country until she took a human rights course a year ago. Ajaye, a senior at the Bronx alternative high school Schomburg Satelite Academy, now sees the country’s gallop to democracy after three…

  • UNEASY CALM IN EYE OF S. AFRICA STORM

    By GENE MUSTAIN and MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writers | Sunday, April 3, 1994 JOHANNESBURG—The epicenter of the violence that rattled this city last week remained a place of frayed nerves and bullet-riddled glass yesterday. Outside the headquarters of the African National Congress Party, a security guard quickly confronted two visitors who stepped…

  • CAULDRON OF CHANGE

    Text: MICHAEL O. ALLEN; Maps & Design: JIM WILLIS | Sunday, April 3, 1994 HISTORY’S LESSONS South Africa, as it enters a world made uncertain by the end of apartheid, should look to the post-independence experiences of Namibia and Zimbabwe. The same fears being raised today about South Africa’s stumble to democracy were raised in…

  • MANDELA—BORN TO RULE

    By GENE MUSTAIN and MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writers | Sunday, April 3, 1994 JOHANNESBURG—He carries himself like he was born to power—and he was, 75 years ago, in a hut at the bottom of the African continent. His family ran the village; a cousin, with whom he lived while a teen, was…

  • DE KLERK—WHITE HOPE

    By MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer | Sunday, April 3, 1994 The scenes are stunning: blacks lustily cheering apartheid scion Frederik Willem de Klerk as he campaigns for re-election to the presidency of South Africa. The happy candidate obliges by donning Zulu tribal hats, carrying spears and cowhide shields. “I’m white,” he told…

  • FEAR STALKS THE LAND_‘Whole country has gone mad’

    By GENE MUSTAIN and MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writers, Wednesday | April 6, 1994 JOHANNESBURG—The looming national election has laid a new carpet of fear across this already traumatized and hyper-vigilant society. With three weeks to go, gun stores and food stores are running out of weapons and non-perishable food, and many whites…

  • VISIT TO SOWETO_INSIDE THE NECKLACE Pointless deaths but real victims

    By GENE MUSTAIN and MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writers, Wednesday | April 6, 1994 SOWETO—He was an unidentified man, a weekly newspaper reported, and lucky for him that the police and paramedics came along when they did. He was walking past the Dube Hostel, a decrepit barracks-like encampment where the so-called Zulu royalists…

  • VISIT TO SOWETO_A tormented past, uncertain future Poverty, violence crowd out hopes

    By MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer | Sunday, April 10, 1994 SOWETO—Seeing this famous black township brings to mind ruins of war, of battle just done. On nighttime approach—home to the Zulu, Xhosa, Sotho, and Tswana tribes—the flames of random trash fires send millions of sparks into an eerie sky heavy with the…