 Editors note…………..The extract from an article published by Guardian UK below, references a letter sent by Pule to the Mandela family. It also quotes a family member saying that no proof of paternity could be obtained because her mother has died and DNA tests would not be possible. This is untrue.!!. Paternal and maternal links can be established over many generations using modern DNA profiling techniques.
The Mail & Guardian SA reproduced a letter sent by Pule to Mandela in August last year, a month before she died from a stroke at her home in Bloemfontein.
“Dear Tata, Please kindly be advised that this is not an easy letter for me to write,” it said. “However, pardon my request as it touches on a very long-outstanding sensitive and confidential matter. My request therefore it is to kindly request you to let me meet you, as I believe you are my father and I am your daughter.”
The paper reported that Pule learned the identity of her “tata” (father), in 1998 from her 85-year-old grandmother, Winfred Monakali. Her mother, Seipati, had died in 1992 without telling her the story.
It is not the first time that 92-year-old Mandela, who was a charismatic young lawyer and is now in his third marriage, has faced paternity claims.
But his grandson Mandla played down the fresh report, saying it was too late to investigate. “I can’t give you issues of might be or might not,” he said. “These are issues of blood. It’s unfortunate that the lady is dead because the only way we can prove someone is a member of the family is through a DNA test.”
He added: “This is not new to my ears. We do get people claiming to be members of this family. But my grandfather is elderly and he is all I want to focus on.”
Former South African president Nelson Mandela may have fathered an illegitimate daughter following an affair in 1945, his foundation has said.
Mpho Pule’s claim matched the documentary record of Mandela’s life, Verne Harris, a spokesman for the Nelson Mandela Foundation, said. But, Harris stressed that only a DNA test would provide absolute confirmation.
“This is the point at which we hand the matter over to the family,” he said Friday.
Pule, who died last year, is said to have found out who her father was from her grandmother in 1998.
Now her children are continuing her fight to be recognised as the seventh child fathered by the former apartheid-era freedom fighter, the daily said.
While the allegation that the former South African president, 92, was unfaithful while married is not new, no claim of paternity is ever known to have been confirmed.
According to Pule’s grandmother, Mandela had a brief affair with her daughter Seipati Jane Monakali in Cape Town in 1945 by which time he had been married to his first wife, Evelyn, for a year and already had a son.
Monakali died in 1992 without revealing her secret.
Pule is reported to have repeatedly contacted the foundation in the hope of meeting her father.
Her calls and letters went unanswered until last October, when the foundation wrote to say it had “verified” the information she had sent them and asking her to contact them. Unfortunately, Pule had died of a stroke a month earlier.
Pule’s family is now waiting to hear from Mandela’s daughter Zindzi, who is said to be handling the claim. No one from Mandela’s family could be reached for comment.
Source:The Mail & Guardian SA
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