Andimba Toivo ja Toivo, Nelson Mandela and Denis Goldberg
May 6, 2010 – Nelson Mandela today met two of his old comrades – fellow Rivonia trialist Denis Goldberg and Namibian independence activist, Andimba Toivo ja Toivo – at his office in Houghton.
Denis Goldberg, 77, who was sentenced to life imprisonment, having been convicted of sabotage along with Mr Mandela, on June 12, 1964, brought him a copy of his recently released autobiography, The Mission: A Life for Freedom in South Africa.
“It was lovely seeing him and for him to page through the book and look at photos and to recall the people there … it delighted me,” said Goldberg.
Goldberg, the youngest of the eight activists convicted in the Rivonia Trial, served his sentence in Pretoria because he was white. Apartheid laws meant white and black prisoners could not be jailed together.
Toivo ja Toivo, 85, a former member of the South West African People’s Organisation (Swapo), was sentenced on January 26, 1968, to 20 years’ imprisonment, which he served on Robben Island. He is known for fighting back after being assaulted by a warder.
“It was marvellous, fantastic,” Toivo ja Toivo said of the meeting. He recalled how he first met Mr Mandela in 1971, when he and other Swapo prisoners joined Mr Mandela on Robben Island.
Toivo ja Toivo had first met Goldberg in the 1950s, when he first heard about “this black lawyer” called Nelson Mandela.