In a newly-published interview in a British newspaper, the former wife of Nelson Mandela confessed her “disappointment” in her former husband whose name she even appeared to regret having.
 
"This name Mandela is an albatross around the necks of my family,” Winnie Madikizela-Mandela said in an interview with the London Telegraph. “Mandela was not the only man who suffered. There were many others, hundreds who languished in prison and died. Many unsung and unknown heroes of the struggle, and there were others in the leadership too, like poor Steve Biko, who died of the beatings, horribly all alone. Mandela did go to prison and he went in there as a burning young revolutionary. But look what came out," she said to interviewer Nadira Naipaul.
 
"Mandela let us down. He agreed to a bad deal for the blacks. Economically, we are still on the outside. The economy is very much 'white'. It has a few token blacks, but so many who gave their life in the struggle have died unrewarded."
 
She slammed the Truth and Reconciliation hearings, calling them “a charade.” "What good does the truth do? How does it help anyone to know where and how their loved ones were killed or buried? That Bishop Tutu who turned it all into a religious circus came here."
 
Her remarks appeared to catch the ANC leadership off-guard and they said efforts were underway to to find out if she really said Nelson Mandela had let down black people, an official said on Tuesday.
 
"She is in the US now and we are in the process of trying to locate her," said African National Congress spokesman Ishmael Mnisi.