Mandela's visit 23 years ago....Mandehyah !

[Sir X]

Mandela's visit 23 years ago

Michael BURKE

Thursday, July 24, 2014 4 Comments

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Nelson Mandela (left) moves in to embrace then Prime Minister Michael Manley on the occasion of his visit to Jamaica, 23 years ago.

Nelson Mandela, freed from prison for more than a year and three years before becoming president of South Africa, landed in Jamaica for an official visit on July 24 1991. I was in attendance at the rally for Mandela in the National Stadium. I would not have gone had it not been for someone stupidly deciding to place Mandela in a car with a tinted glass from the Norman Manley International Airport to his first stop at the University of the West Indies. This was where the late Professor Rex Nettleford said that the children did not mispronounce his name when they said "Mandehya", but what they meant was "Man is here".

At the stadium, one local entertainer decided to sing something 'off-colour' -- inappropriate for the occasion. The crowds booed him off the stage. Also at the stadium, a few young men went out on the track and were brutalised by the police. The crowd reacted by throwing bottles, and then a policeman fired a gun into a section of the bleachers, which killed one man.

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...-ago-_17230147

[Rockman]

Strange how the news(what we remember) of that day was how Beenie made a fool of himself and not the police(again)acting ignorant.Maybe THAT was orchestrated.....,I have come not to expect better from our so-called media.

[Sir X]

Yes and it amazes me that the media and human rights org have yet to address the oppressive history of the ganja laws by said police the implicit and explicit results of extra judicial killings and physical abuse of none other but the poor.

[Mosiah]

If I didn't know you, I would really think you are a stupid, ignorant, weed...or even crackhead.