Category: South Africa: The Freedom Vote

  • A TERROR BOMB KILLS NINE: About 100 Hurt in Johannesburg

    By GENE MUSTAIN and MICHAEL ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writers | Monday, April 25, 1994 JOHANNESBURG—A 200-pound car bomb ripped through downtown Johannesburg yesterday, killing nine and terrorizing South Africans two days before the first all-race elections. “I thought I was dead,” said Tina Dhumess, 42, after doctors patched her head cuts. “I was praying…

  • CASTING OUT APARTHEID: White Rule Dying Amid Ballots

    By MICHAEL O. ALLEN and GENE MUSTAIN, Daily News Staff Writers | Wednesday, April 27, 1994 JOHANNESBURG—Filled with indescribable emotions, South Africa’s liberation hero, Nelson Mandela, will vote today for the first time in his remarkable life. Mandela, the former political prisoner poised to become the first president of the new South Africa, is set…

  • BLOODIED BUT DEFIANT, SOUTH AFRICANS VOW . . . WE WILL VOTE_BOMBERS DON’T STOP VOTE

    By GENE MUSTAIN and MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writers | Tuesday, April 26, 1994 GERMISTON—Dennis Makubela will vote. Someone almost killed him yesterday, but he will vote. Mavis Phungula will vote. Someone almost killed her too, when a bomb—the worst of many that exploded across the country yesterday—destroyed a crowded taxi stand in…

  • NATION HEADS TO POLLS: South Africans Turn Out in Force in 1st All-Race Vote

    By MICHAEL O. ALLEN and GENE MUSTAIN, Daily News Staff Writers | Thursday, April 28, 1994 JOHANNESBURG—Their freedom finally at hand, millions upon jubilant millions of blacks voted for the first time yesterday and began sending the last colonial outpost on the Africa continent into the history books. On an epic day of stirring images…

  • NATION HEADS TO POLLS_Family Steps Out of Shadows

    By MICHAEL O. ALLEN and GENE MUSTAIN, Daily News Staff Writers | Thursday, April 28, 1994 SOWETO—As dusk turned to dawn on the historic day, Wilson Gwala forgot about his bad heart and his recent kidney problems, and refused to wait. Someone was supposed to come take him to the polls later in the day,…

  • Harlem Rev Snubs de Klerk

    By MICHAEL O. ALLEN and GENE MUSTAIN, Daily News Staff Writers | Thursday, April 28, 1994 SOWETO—The preacher from Harlem paid no mind when the president from Pretoria made a surprise visit to a church here yesterday. While dozens of people, including some of his fellow American preachers, crowded around South African President F. W.…

  • OUTRAGE_MEETING HATRED IN SOUTH AFRICA: Black Daily News Reporter is Attacked as He Covers Rally

    By MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer | Friday, April 29, 1994 RUSTENBURG—I was not afraid. I wanted to see them when they attacked me. “Kaffir, you have to leave; you are not wanted here,” one said. “Kaffir” is South Africa’s ugliest racial epithet, like its U.S. equivalent, “nigger.” “Wait a minute, you invited…

  • OUTRAGE_Not All Press Welcomed, No Matter What the Sign Says

    By GENE MUSTAIN, Daily News Staff Writer | Friday, April 29, 1994 RUSTENBURG—The first whiff of the hate in store came when we turned off the two-lane blacktop onto a dusty rutted road and a group of Boer commandos by a parked car glared at us. One of them, a huge pot-bellied man with a…

  • NEW CHALLENGES FOR A NEW NATION: Sharpton Sees Lesson in South Africa Voting

    By GENE MUSTAIN and MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writers | Sunday, May 1, 1994 JOHANNESBURG—After a whirlwind, emotional visit, the Rev. Al Sharpton flew home to New York yesterday with stars in his eyes. “If only I could bring home in a bottle the hope and spirit I saw here, it would change…

  • NEW CHALLENGES FOR A NEW NATION_Mandela Facing a Huge Task

    By MICHAEL O. ALLEN and GENE MUSTAIN, Daily News Staff Writers | Sunday, May 1, 1994 JOHANNESBURG—It was a symbolic moment too rich to miss—the eclipse of apartheid and a new day dawning on black aspirations for power. Under a full moon about two poignant minutes apart, before and after midnight one day last week,…