At the end of September 1975, Paramount Chief Kaiser Matanzima, Chief Minister of the Transkei, came to New York in a delegation of three. The other members were Dr. M. B. Naidoo, a geography professor at the University of Durban-Westville, and a Coloured person (whose name I do not remember).
The South African mission to the UN telephoned me and said that the Chief would like to call on me. I did not want to meet him in my office – to avoid propaganda that he was received by a UN official - and replied that I would like to invite him for lunch at a restaurant. Then the mission arranged the lunch - early October at "Pen and Pencil" - and paid for it though no one from the mission sat with us.
I was somewhat late for lunch. We had received news that morning that Winnie Mandela had been imprisoned for contravention of banning orders, and I was busy arranging for the release of a statement by the Chairman of the Special Committee against Apartheid.
I apologised for the delay and explained the reason. During the lunch, I asked Chief Matanzima: "Winnie Mandela, I understand, is your relative. Why don't you tell the South African Government to stop harassing her and getting bad publicity? Vorster needs you and will listen to you." He said he will take that up.
Then I said: "Mandela and others are from the Transkei. Some of them, like Govan Mbeki, I hear, are old and in poor health in prison. Why don't you ask Vorster to release them and, if he wishes, restrict them in the Transkei?"
He replied that he would do that when Transkei`s independence was declared on October 26, 1976. I suggested that for his own popularity, it was better to do that before the independence. He said he would consider that.
It had been reported that Transkei would be declared independent, but we did not know the date until then. I informed the Chairman of the Special Committee and others, we planned for action on that day.
On October 26, 1976, we were able to arrange for Oliver Tambo to arrive in New York and deliver a speech in the General Assembly. A resolution denouncing the independence of the Transkei was adopted almost unanimously.1
As for the release of Mandela and others, apparently Matanzima took up the matter after "independence." Mandela refused to be confined in the Transkei.
1. General Assembly resolution 31/6 of 26 October 1976, adopted by 134 votes to none, with one abstention, adopted a few hours after the proclamation of the "independence " of Transkei.