Long WALK to freedom
an AFRICAN tale
by Nelson Mandela

ROBBEN ISLAND: THE DARK YEARS


AT MIDNIGHT, I was awake and staring at the ceiling--images from the trial were still rattling around in my head--when I heard steps coming down the hallway. I was locked in my own cell, away from the others. There was a knock at my door and I could see Colonel Aucamp's face at the bars. "Mandela," he said in a husky whisper, "are you awake?"

I told him I was. "You are a lucky man," he said. "We are taking you to a place where you will have your freedom. You will be able to move around; you'll see the ocean and the sky, not just gray walls."

He intended no sarcasm, but I well knew that the place he was ...

Long WALK to freedom
an AFRICAN tale
by Nelson Mandela

ROBBEN ISLAND: THE DARK YEARS


AT MIDNIGHT, I was awake and staring at the ceiling--images from the trial were still rattling around in my head--when I heard steps coming down the hallway. I was locked in my own cell, away from the others. There was a knock at my door and I could see Colonel Aucamp's face at the bars. "Mandela," he said in a husky whisper, "are you awake?"

I told him I was. "You are a lucky man," he said. "We are taking you to a place where you will have your freedom. You will be able to move around; you'll see the ocean and the sky, not just gray walls."

He intended no sarcasm, but I well knew that the place he was referring to would not afford me the freedom I longed for. He then remarked rather cryptically, "As long as you don't make trouble, you'll get everything you want."

Aucamp then woke the others, all of whom were in a single cell, ordering them to pack their things. Fifteen minutes later we were making our way through the iron labyrinth of Pretoria Local, with its endless series of clanging metal doors echoing in our ears.

Once outside, the seven of us--Walter, Raymond, Govan, Kathy, Andrew, Elias, and myself--were handcuffed and piled into the back of a police van. It was well after midnight, but none of us was tired, and the atmosphere was not at all somber. We sat on the dusty floor, singing and chanting, reliving the final moments of the trial. The warders provided us with sandwiches and cold drinks and Lieutenant Van Wyck was perched in the back with us. He was a pleasant fellow, and during a lull in the singing, he offered his unsolicited opinion on our future. "Well," he said, "you chaps won't be in prison long. The demand for your release is too strong. In a year or two, you will get out and you will return as national heroes. Crowds will cheer you, everyone will want to be your friend, women will want you. Ag, you fellows have it made." We listened without comment, but I

In British Columbia over the last twenty years, dozens of Aboriginal women and girls have gone missing from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and along the ‘Highway of Tears’, a stretch of road that runs between Prince George and Prince Rupert. Many of these missing women and girls have been found murdered.

OTTAWA , — By IAN AUSTEN Published: June 12, 2008
The government of Canada formally apologized on Wednesday to Native Canadians for forcing about 150,000 native children into government-financed residential schools where many suffered physical and sexual abuse.

Native Canadians at a residential school in Fort Resolution, in the Northwest Territories, around 1936. The residential schools ...

In British Columbia over the last twenty years, dozens of Aboriginal women and girls have gone missing from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and along the ‘Highway of Tears’, a stretch of road that runs between Prince George and Prince Rupert. Many of these missing women and girls have been found murdered.

OTTAWA , — By IAN AUSTEN Published: June 12, 2008
The government of Canada formally apologized on Wednesday to Native Canadians for forcing about 150,000 native children into government-financed residential schools where many suffered physical and sexual abuse.

Native Canadians at a residential school in Fort Resolution, in the Northwest Territories, around 1936. The residential schools were poorly run and inadequately financed.

The system of schools, which began shutting down in the 1970s, after decades of operations, was dedicated to eradicating the languages, traditions and cultural practices of Native Canadians and has been linked to the widespread incidence of alcoholism, suicide and family violence in many native communities.

“The treatment of children in Indian residential schools is a sad chapter in our history,” Stephen Harper, the prime minister of Canada, said in a speech in the House of Commons, where a small group of former students and native leaders sat in front of him. “Today, we recognize that this policy of assimilation was wrong, has caused great harm and has no place in our country.”

An apology from the prime minister had been sought by native groups for years and was part of a broad, court-sanctioned settlement with the government and the church organizations that operated the schools. The federal government also agreed to pay 1.9 billion Canadian dollars (about $1.85 billion) to surviving students and to establish a truth and reconciliation commission to document the experiences of children who attended the schools.
Harry S. LaForme, a Mississauga Indian and a justice of the Ontario Court of Appeal who will oversee the commission, said t