Mandela retires as ANC leader; condemns whites' attempts to sabotage government

South African President Nelson Mandela recently retired as head of the African National Congress (ANC), and in his farewell speech, he accused his critics of political sabotage and said some South African Whites and the White media are still trying to destabilize the country.

"The leopard has not changed its spot," Mandela said of the National Party, which implemented and abolished apartheid and still represents the Afrikaner minority of Dutch-descended White settlers.

"These elements find it difficult to redefine their role in the setting of a non-racial democracy," Mandela said. "They continue to be imprisoned by notions of White supremacy."

Mandela made the recently during the ANC's recent 50th national conference in Mafikeng, South Africa. The ANC political party was key in Mandela's historic election as South Africa's first Black president in 1994. Mandela has held the ANC leadership post for six years.

Mandela will remain president of South Africa until the next national election in 1999.

Thabo Mbeki, deputy president of the ANC, was elected as the new president during the recent conference. Mbeki is also deputy president of South Africa.

Also during the ANC conference, Mandela's former wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, withdrew her nomination to be deputy president of the African National Congress.

"To those comrades who nominated my name, I apologize for having to decline," she announced.

During his farewell speech, President Mandela also warned his African National Congress that some Whites want to maintain vestiges of apartheid to protect their privileges of the past.

Those "who have not accepted the reality of majority rule" are helping to instigate South Africa's widespread crime, sabotaging the economy and using the mass media to spread anti-African National Congress propaganda, he said.

The goal, Mandela said, is to make the country ungovernable, subvert the economy and erode confidence in the ANC's ability to govern.

During his four-hour, 53-page speech, the 79-year-old Mandela had to rest several times and frequently had to drink water in the hot auditorium.

Mandela also accused the mass media and some aid and development groups of working against his government.

In the 3 1/2 years the ANC has been in power, "the matter has become perfectly clear that the bulk of the mass media in our country has set itself up as a force opposed to the ANC," Mandela said.

Some aid groups, he maintained, are in fact acting as the political ears and mouthpieces for local and foreign interests that are acting against his government.

Mandela also listed the ANC government's achievements, which include a new constitution, a stable government and programs to provide electric power, running water and housing for millions of poor Blacks who were ignored under apartheid.