Jacob Zuma’s Robben Island legacy

By | November 2009

Three of the first four South African presidents — Nelson Mandela, Kgalema Motlanthe, and now Jacob Zuma — were incarcerated on Robben Island for substantial periods of time. (Govan Mbeki, the father of the fourth and longest-serving president to date, Thabo Mbeki, served 23 years in the island prison.) Moreover, Zuma told Motlanthe about Robben Island long before the Motlanthe’s own imprisonment, in a sense preparing the younger man for what might — and did — await him.

Filed under: ACAS Review (Bulletin), Bulletin 84
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