Mandela family ‘wants to deal with’ member who gave permission

Reports suggest the furore around the book Mandela’s Last Years is not dying down anytime soon.

City Press reports that Nelson Mandela’s Grandson Mandla has asked publisher Penguin Random House to reveal who gave author Dr Vejay Ramlakan permission to write a book about what he had witnessed as the late statesman’s physician.

The paper says Mandla and the family want to “deal with them”.

The Sunday Times has reported that Madiba’s eldest surviving daughter Makaziwe may have written a note expressing support for the book.

It was reported this week that the former surgeon-general faces a possible 10-year prison sentence for violating parts of the Defence Act, the Protection of Information Act (PIA), which replaced the Official Secrets Act in 1982, and the Minimum Information Security Standards (Miss). He would have signed a declaration of secrecy informed by the PIA.

Mandela’s executors, led by former deputy chief justice Dikgang Moseneke will be lodging a complaint with the Health Professions Council of SA (HPCSA) for the alleged violation of doctor-patient confidentiality.

Penguin Random House has withdrawn the book from print, with Mandela’s widow Graca Michel threatening to sue.

The book also caused the SANDF and the HPCSA to distance themselves from it.

Ramlakan and the publishers initially insisted, however, that they had been granted permission by a Mandela family member to publish the book. Ramlakan has refused to divulge who it was though.

Mandla this week urged members of the public to “do the right thing” if they had copies of the book (presumably meaning to destroy the books or return them to bookshops for refunds), though in reality the cost of these now rare books has already soared into the thousands of rands.

The cover of Mandela’s Last Years by Vejay Ramlakan.

Mandela granddaughter Tukwini Mandela told the Sunday Times that she knows who gave permission for the book, but would not divulge it. She would not say if it was her mother, Makaziwe.

The paper said it had seen a handwritten note allegedly from Makaziwe in support of the book. Aside from praising Ramlakan’s work as a doctor, it adds, “I am with you all the way”.

Makaziwe declined to comment.

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela also autographed a book for Ramlakan in which she praised her “adopted son” for his “great work”. This week, following all the fallout, she, however, claimed she hadn’t been the one who gave permission for the writing of the book in the first place.

The book revealed it was allegedly Winnie, Madiba’s ex-wife, at Madiba’s side when he died, not Machel, who was supposedly not present.