Original subtitles

It is not true about this man and me. You must be careful. You are my pride.

Chief, you're too lazy.

Oliver! If the blacks kill each other, they will forget all about fighting us.

Priority now is international pressure.

Economic sanctions.

Now more than ever, the world needs a symbol to rally around for our cause.

We are being strangled by these sanctions.

There will be a full -scale bloody revolution.

Oliver has had a stroke.

The wall was crumbling, the sledgehammers in the hands of men, not

went up.

Then, just before ten o 'clock, the moment Berliners had waited 28 years

The symbol of the Communist Iron Curtain has fallen.

We are witnessing a lifetime moment in history.

The Cold War is over.

A symbolic breach in the structure.

that separated millions and claimed hundreds of lives.

West German riot police stopped the crowd surging into communist soil.

But by then, they'd made their point.

Dear President de Klerk, in this time of great change around the world, it is my

sincere wish that you and I may open a new dialogue concerning the future of

South Africa.

You must give up this idea of group's rights and separate homelands.

It makes it look like you are trying to reform apartheid to make it acceptable

instead of abandoning it altogether.

But we have to deal with white fears of black domination. Then we have to change

their thinking. The idea of different groups of people, that is the

of apartheid.

We want everyone in this country to think of themselves and everyone around

them. as South Africans, not as part of such and such a group.

I'm a pragmatist, Mr. Mandela.

We have to move towards a workable solution.

For too long, you and the ANC have been seen as the problem instead of part of

the solution to the problem.

President de Klerk, I believe that you are a man we can do business with, but

is pointless to continue to talk about releasing me if the ANC's conditions are

not met.

They have not changed.

Release political prisoners?

unban our organizations, allow the exiles to return home and lift the state

emergency.

Today, after nearly three decades, Nelson Mandela is a free

man.

Winnie Mandela at his side. They walk together into a new future for South

Africa.

Sent to Robben Island at the age of 46.

Now leaving Victor Fester prison at 72.

He has never wavered in his commitment to his people, to justice, no matter the

cost.

After so many years of struggle, the ANC and its supporters around the world

must be savouring this day of victory, vindication for their efforts, and a new

era for their country.

I would have believed that one day Nelson Mandela would be a free man.

That we were the ones who are free again.

Just because Mandela is free, doesn't mean he or the ANC is going to lead the

country.

Mr.

President, Chief Puttalesi.

Ah, come in.

Chief Puttalesi, my good friend.

Good to see you.

We have a lot to talk about.

After his release, Mandela was driven to a massive rally at Cape Town City Hall,

where more than 100 ,000 supporters gathered to hear him speak.

He delivered an impassioned speech, declaring a commitment to seek peace and

reconciliation and the birth of a democratic and free South Africa.

10 months.

Magnificent pitch. Oh, thank you. I had to borrow my wife's glasses just to read

it. One would never know.

The whole world is stunned at how good you look. And so am I.

I have to stop pinching myself.

Are we dreaming?

No, no, this is real.

You are most welcome to stay at my residence tonight, my dear. Thank you,

would like to sleep in my own bed tonight in Soweto.

But give me the honor of hosting.

It is late in the day, and we must think about security.

A phone call for Madiba.

A phone call for you.

It's Oliver. Yes.

I will be back.

Hello, Oliver.

Are you there?

Madiba.

Don't try to speak.

I can hear you breathing.

I know you are there.

I heard your salute to me in your

speech.

Yes. Thank you for leading the ANC during the most

difficult circumstances.

And now you have to fight for yourself.

Eh? For your health.

It is so good to hear you, my old friend.

Oh, wonderful.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Where is Winnie?

I see.

Are you having a good time?

Yes, Father.

Bishop Tutu is insisting that we stay here tonight.

Why not?

It is very comfortable for you here.

And I would like to have more private time for us.

There is plenty of time for that.

Excuse me, my diva.

There's someone I'd like you to meet. Oh, all right.

He is half your age.

Whatever is going on must stop.

I am home now.

You look like a fool.

I was almost half your age when I married you.

I am home now.

Yes, Doctor.

Jubilation as Nelson Mandela returned to his home in Soweto for the first time

in 27 years.

The day was marked by huge parades and dancing in the streets as thousands of

Seretans welcomed him back to the township.

The release of Nelson Mandela has been greeted with joy through most of South

Africa.

Heightened political tensions surrounding Mandela's release have

renewed fighting in several townships in this region.

Violence has also increased between the mainly Zulu.

Encarta Freedom Party, and Nelson Mandela's now unbanned African National

Congress. Efforts of reconciliation between Mr. Mandela and Chief Budolezi

so far failed.

These have been two of the bloodiest months in the history.

Please forgive me, Mr. President, if I begin by stating the obvious. It seems

clear to me that our first task must be to address... the climate of violence

and intimidation, whatever the source may be, that must be a precondition for

any negotiation.

Agreed. The ANC and the National Party must both be able to state truthfully

sincerely that negotiations are being conducted in good faith.

Mr. Mandela, on what other basis can negotiations be conducted?

We must meet face to face with Buta Levi.

It is the only solution.

I don't think that will go down well.

Hello, darling.

Water.

Darling, will you make some more tea for our guest, please?

Yes, doctor.

I will not defy the ANC on this.

If I do so, I will look arrogant.

I will respect the collective leadership, but if I could sit down with

Levi, Face to face, perhaps we could resolve some of the... Helezi is a

political prostitute.

The government knows that if they keep stalking this war between Inkata and the

ANC, they'll be able to prolong their stay in power.

I have no reason to believe that the clerk is anything but a man of

I do not believe he wants to see this country burnt to the ground. Our people

need power.

They need arms.

This repression and the violence it creates cannot be ended if we attack

other. It is very well to think intellectually.

But if you've seen young children die in front of you, and you've been tortured

and abused, then you will know that if you wake up in the middle of the night

because of the screaming, you have a gun to reach for. So you meet brutality

with brutality. There is only brutality out there.

Don't worry about the tea, will you?

Don't get up.

I will let myself out.

Bye, Walton.

When you finally go out there and you meet with the people,

you will feel their anger.

I know what my own anger feels like.

And I refuse to accept that our long sacrifices send our hearts to stone.

I have learned to remove anger and bitterness from my heart

because I know that great anger and violence never built

anything, least of all a nation.

If you and Joe, with your credentials as leaders of the armed struggle, try to

sell this idea to the people, they will listen.

Abandon the armed struggle now.

Suspend it.

We do not give up our arm.

It will put the onus back on them, and it will be what they least expect from

us. I hear this nonsense.

But the government is behind the third force that's creating violence in our

township. I'm sure of it. Yes, but we don't know for sure.

Call their bluff.

Spend the armed struggle.

We show them our peaceful intentions.

It will be a bold and decisive move, but we must have the courage to take it.

Once again, a political march through a South African city has turned to

violence as tension builds in this country by the day.

Smoke cleared to reveal the casualties of... The city center battle.

The bloody streets of a country whose transition to democracy is becoming

increasingly murderous. I had nothing to do with the training of Encarta or the

money that went to them.

I've got no idea where this is coming from.

Are you telling me that you know nothing of a third force?

This is just as much a mystery to me as it is to you.

I've been told this is a tribal thing.

That is nonsense and you know it.

I am beginning to doubt your peaceful intentions, President de Klerk.

Mr. Mandela, I only want a peaceful solution for South Africa.

There is no third force operating under my orders.

I cannot control this violence.

If the people who are dying out there were white, would you still tell me

Black lives are cheap.

I do not think that.

Better than the clerk, I have called you a man of integrity. As we try to move

forward, I so want to believe that you are.

Late evening.

I don't need that much sleep lately.

You know my political work keeps me awake.

Would you like some tea, Tata?

No, thank you.

I would like you to stay so that we can discuss where we find ourselves now.

What do you mean?

We are home now, Doctor.

I have lived all these years in the hope that we would be reunited.

Is that what you want?

You have no idea.

You are my husband.

We have been together since I was very young.

My love for you is a fact.

Thank you for the history lesson.

I have to travel on Wednesday to Sweden.

Are you going to see Olive and Adelaide?

Yes.

Please give them my love.

Is it true that you are comrade Oliver Tambo?

Is it true that you are Nelson Mandela?

It was

breathtaking. I was listening from my prison room.

The clerk, in his opening speech to the parliament, dismantled apartheid system

completely. It was breathtaking.

An amazing day.

Govan,

Joe, Walter, all reunited at long last.

Together, when we heard the ANC was officially unbanned.

We wanted to ring the bell, huh? Yes.

Oh, yes.

Ah, so how is Winnie? She's well, she's well. She sends her love to you.

And to Adelaide, she is recovering quite well.

But things between us are not the same.

Well, I imagine it will take a while to get back in the swing of things. No,

she is not interested in me in that way.

There is someone else in the picture.

It is not like what is between you and Adelaide, or what is between Walter

and... Bettina with us.

Would you like me to ask Adelaide to try to speak to her?

No.

It is best left between a husband and wife.

Chris has just come from a tour of our military camp.

He says that there is a serious lack of health facilities in Tanzania.

He is a good commander.

But I know that he will resist this idea for us to pull back our military

offensive.

These are the qualities of a general.

Our new generation is in good hands. Yes, but you must help him to

Oliver, that to suspend the violence now will help with our negotiations.

Yes.

This, the clerk, what do you make of him? He says he is committed to bringing

forth a true democracy and an election, but... I am not sure that his intentions

are clear.

During my travels this month, it has become apparent that he is not happy

the international community wanting to support the ANC.

So I will continue to work with him in the hope that he will keep his promise.

Look here.

What do you think? Should we have a snort?

Or is it against doctor's orders?

Your accounting is one of our top secrets.

Yes, yes.

do not tell Adelaide. Did someone say Adelaide?

It's almost four o 'clock, Oliver.

We checked that down.

You see?

She is a dictator and not the benevolent kind either.

You are lucky to have such a loving wife.

I cannot remember.

the less time I had so much fun.

Are you taking another trip?

How long are you going for this time?

You are leaving me.

I can no longer reconcile myself with your behavior.

So you talk to all those Afrikaners who tortured me, who destroyed our family

life and butchered our people.

But me?

Am I not good enough to talk to?

Am I not worth your forgiveness?

It's not the same thing. How is it not the same thing?

I've been home for weeks.

Weeks. Not once have you come to our bed unless you thought

that I was asleep.

You've been home in part that you don't know me anymore. I will never regret

building a life with you or all the love and affection I have felt for you

all of these years.

From the moment I first met you, Zami.

Then stay with me.

It will be like it was before.

That way that it was before.

That way is no more.

to unite our people. Not just Indians, colored Africans.

We want to unite Africans, colored Indians and whites.

This is why we have been talking with the National Party.

We want this peace.

This spirit of reconciliation.

This spirit must not only unite the government and ourselves.

It must build and bring.

Our people, those who have been working with the enemy, they must now work with

us to build this new South Africa.

I give you now our soldier for peace,

Chris Honey.

Yes to Nelson. Nelson. Nelson.

Cheers. Cheers.

So, what is to be done with Boutelevi and these right -wingers?

It's clear they don't want these negotiations to work. They don't want an

election. Well, we've suspended our military might in good faith. I now

that our only offense is our message.

Their strategy is to divide.

Ours must be to unite.

And that's the message we must take to the people. Wasn't it Samara who said,

for the nation to live, the tribe must die?

So I have your support.

Yes, yes, of course.

We still have our might, Chris.

The assassination of Chris Harney has unleashed a profound sense of

and anger amongst the Latvians, sparking widespread protests and rioting.

The country now stands on the brink of civil war.

Tonight, I am reaching out to every single South African, black and white.

A white man.

full of prejudice and hate, committed a deed so foul that now our whole country

teeters on the brink of disaster.

The cold -blooded murder of Chris Honey has set shockwaves throughout our

country and the world.

Our grief and our anger is tearing us apart.

Now is the time for all South Africans

to stand together against those who wish to destroy what Chris Honey

gave his life for, the freedom of all of us.

Now is the time for our white compatriots to reach out

with an understanding of the grievous loss to our nation.

Now is the time for the police to act.

with sensitivity and restraint.

This is a watershed moment for all of us.

He was the young leader that we all prayed for.

He was like a son to me.

Me too.

future.

You did well, my dear.

The entire nation has calmed by your words.

We need a date for the election.

A real date set in stone.

There is still a chance for us to divert a crisis

which could cripple our country for years to come.

We still have that chance.

We will have an election with or without those who are against it.

We will frustrate the objective of the people who killed Chris.

We will have an election.

Yes, hello.

Where is he?

All those years ago in prison, I had a conversation with you in

my head.

Then I was lucky enough to talk to you again in Berlin.

I suppose now I shall have to wait to see you again.

Talk to you on the other side.

You bought us our first decent suits, Walter.

You encouraged us to practice law together.

You groomed us to be leaders, Walter.

You were being groomed by the Corsa long before I met you.

I just recognized qualities in both of you. I still see things in you that you

don't see in yourself.

You have experienced great loss in your life, Nelson.

But you have a limitless capacity to love.

You must not think this is the end of happiness for you.

Hello?

Yes?

Yes.

Set in stone.

That is good.

We have an interim constitution and an election date.

27th April, 1994.

It's what the three of us always wanted.

Even my parents, who I have passed away, have been wishing to see this one day.

They couldn't. But today I have wanted for them.

There are people who died for this.

Most people who fought for this, they are not here.

They couldn't take us to the promised land.

But now here we are.

Mr. Mandela?

Mr. Mandela?

Are you ready to take the oath of office, sir?

The truth is that we are not yet free.

We have merely achieved the freedom to be free, the right not to be oppressed.

We have not yet taken that final step of our journey, but the first step

on a longer, more difficult road.

For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way

that respects and enhances the freedom of others.

The true test of our devotion to freedom is just beginning.