MK MALEFANE | The queen made time for the Mendi Memorial. It’s the SA state’s turn to keep a promise
Mandela and the queen made a promise they’d be shocked to know hasn’t been kept
11 September 2022 - 19:41
Queen Elizabeth II had just left the Pretoria guest house with Prince Phillip in a motorcade on the morning of March 23 1995, setting off a major diplomatic security crisis. Officially, according to the SA government protocol itinerary, her motorcade was going to Waterkloof Airbase, where a full military parade and exhibition was in full swing in her honour, headed by deputy president Thabo Mbeki. Up until that morning, government was in full control of her majesty’s state visit to SA. Why then did the queen depart from official protocol, instructing the driver in the opposite direction, to Avalon Cemetery in Soweto?..
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