"If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America."
"What I am condemning is that one power, with a president who has no foresight and who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust.
Why does the US behave so arrogantly? Their friend Israel has got weapons of mass destruction. But because it's their ally they won't ask the UN to get rid of them."
"It is a tragedy what Bush is doing in Iraq. All he wants is Iraqi oil. We must expose this as much as possible. He is making the greatest mistake of his life by trying to cause carnage." Nelson Mandela - January 2003
May 10, 2004 - Mandela, in Farewell Speech, Slams Iraq War
Former President Nelson Mandela on Monday hailed South Africa's 10 years of peaceful multi-racial democracy as an inspiration for a world he said was saddened and horrified by the US-led war in Iraq.
The 85-year-old anti-apartheid icon, in a farewell address to Parliament on the 10th anniversary of his inauguration as the country's first black president, urged South Africans to come together to meet their new challenges: poverty, unemployment and HIV/AIDS.
"We live in a world where there is enough reason for cynicism and despair," said Mr Mandela, a fierce critic of the US-led war on Iraq.
"We watch as two of the leading democracies, two leading nations of the free world, get involved in a war that the United Nations did not sanction," he said, adding that the world had been horrified by reports of torture of Iraqi prisoners by US and British forces.
"We look on with horror as reports surface of terrible abuses against the dignity of human beings held captive by invading forces in their own country."
"We see how the powerful countries, all of them so-called democracies, manipulate multilateral bodies to the great disadvantage and suffering of the poorer developing nations."
May 22, 1999 -
Mandela, a Tiger for Our Time
In his very first address to the crowd massed on the Parade in Cape Town after his release, that he was not a messiah, "but an ordinary man who had become a leader because of extraordinary circumstances".
The conviction, reiterated in Long Walk, "that all men, even the most seemingly cold-blooded, have a core of decency, and that if their heart is touched, they are capable of changing".
He commented on the latest confirmation of the South African miracle: the transformation of the country's image. Within a decade, it had changed from pariah of the world to a position of moral and political import.
"That is all your fault," I reminded him.
It is part of Mandela's charm that he can be humble without a hint of false modesty. He didn't refute my observation, but insisted on placing it in context: if he had influenced the situation, it was because the country itself, and its people, had changed. We were no leopard incapable of changing its black spots.
May 10, 2004 - Mandela spoke to a joint session of both houses of Parliament in a special session to mark the 10th anniversary of his inauguration as the first black president of South Africa.
In 1964 Mandela was sentenced to life in prison for sabotage against the apartheid state. He emerged 27 years later in February 1990 when then President F.W. de Klerk ordered his release signaling the beginning of a new era in the country's history.
"Today is the day of Mandela ... who towered like a giant in this transformation,'' said de Klerk, who shared the Nobel peace prize with Mandela for bringing a mostly peaceful end to apartheid.
Leaving the assembly Mandela clutched De Klerk's arm for support as a packed gallery sang an old liberation song: "Show us the way to freedom in this land of Africa Nelson Mandela."