IoS letters, emails & online postings (15 December 2013)

To answer James Hanning’s question, “What did Mandela really think of Margaret Thatcher?” (8 December), we should listen to voices of the time.

A fortnight after Nelson Mandela’s release from prison, Frank Chikane, the general secretary of the South African Council of Churches and a senior member of the United Democratic Front, said in London that Mandela was keen to telephone Mrs Thatcher as they considered Britain to be a “special case”. He added: “We see Mrs Thatcher as our No 1 obstacle in the world.”

Dr Chikane flew in for a mass lobby of Britain’s Parliament on 27 February 1990, organised by the Southern Africa Coalition, a six-month campaign by 90 organisations. It was formed in response to Mrs Thatcher’s campaign against the sanctions that were forcing change, undermining efforts by the Commonwealth, the European Community and the world.

Dr Chikane said he was “dismayed” by Mrs Thatcher’s reaction to Mandela’s release: “She has claimed that it vindicates her policy towards South Africa. She has even ignored Mr Mandela’s warning of the consequences of lifting sanctions ... If Britain continues to pursue the approach adopted by Mrs Thatcher it could be responsible for aborting the prospects for a negotiated end to apartheid.”

Of course, the great Mandela felt that there was no enemy with whom he could not talk and came himself to turn the lady a few months later.

Tom Minney

Via email

...

The death of Nelson Mandela has many meanings but there is a specific one in a British context. The next time a backwoods Tory MP or a neoliberal New Labour MP claims someone is a “terrorist”, very careful thought needs to be given as to whether they know what they are on about.

Keith Flett

London N17

...

We deplore the on-going attempts of Chevron to avoid paying compensation to the communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon severely affected by the oil giant’s dumping of billions of gallons of toxic waste there over decades.

Between 1964 and 1990, the oil company Texaco – which merged with Chevron in 2001 – caused one of the world’s greatest environmental disasters. The oil in the waste product dumped in the Ecuadorian Amazon over this period is estimated to be 30 times the amount spilt in the Exxon Valdez disaster.

By contaminating the rivers used for drinking, bathing and fishing, this created a social disaster for the poor farmers and indigenous people living there.

After decades of campaigning, in 2011, an independent Ecuadorian court ordered Chevron to pay billions in compensation and remediation. But this corporate giant refuses to pay. Reports indicate that Chevron is spending hundreds of millions of dollars – more than it has paid on any clean-up – on hundreds of lawyers and on political lobbying to deny its responsibilities.

It’s time Chevron compensated the Amazon communities for the vast damage it caused.

Ken Livingstone; Natalie Bennett, Leader, Green Party of England and Wales; John Hilary, Executive Director, War on Want; Nick Dearden, Director, World Development Movement; Brian Eno, musician; John Pilger ; Bruce Kent; and 35 others.

Friends of Ecuador

...

Hamish McRae (8 December) complains that “we seem to be building the smallest homes in Europe”. But the bedroom tax has shown that there is a shortage of accommodation for single people and childless couples. Thus we don’t want the three- and four-bedroom homes so beloved of developers.

Tim Mickleburgh

Grimsby, Lincolnshire

...

Though I am no great fan of Ed Balls, I do think he deserves a more robust defence than he seems to be getting (John Rentoul, 8 December). One has only to look at the number of small businesses that have gone to the wall, and the daily headlines of hunger, poverty and broken dreams, to wonder whether Ed Balls’s prescription would not have led to a more humane but still effective remedy for the dire state of the economy after the financial meltdown of 2008.

AMS Hutton-Wilson

Evercreech, Somerset

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Letters to the Editor, The Independent on Sunday, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5HF. Email: sundayletters@independent.co.uk. Online: independent.co.uk/dayinapage/2013/December/15