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The programme of events arranged in honour of the visit of former South African President and freedom fighter, Nelson Mandela, is clearly too demanding and would be taxing even for a person half his age. Mandela is 85. Today’s schedule for Mandela, who flew in late last night from South Africa, begins with a 9.10 am courtesy call on Prime Minister Patrick Manning at Whitehall, and has him fulfilling five other engagements throughout the day, with the tightly packed schedule allowing him, in some cases, mere minutes between leaving one event and arriving at another.

Mandela will be hurriedly shuttled from his courtesy call on the Prime Minister to a 10 o’clock appointment to visit the Cyril Ross Nursery, and from there to the schoolchildren’s rally at the Queen’s Park Oval, starting at 11 am. But this will only be a token appearance as Mandela is due to arrive at the Hilton Trinidad at 11.40 for a luncheon in his honour, to be followed by a courtesy call on Leader of the Opposition Basdeo Panday. Tomorrow’s schedule will be even more demanding, what with a 9.40 am courtesy call on the (Deputy) Mayor of San Fernando; an 11.50 am appearance at a children’s rally at Shaw Park, Tobago, and a 12.15 pm luncheon at the Hilton Tobago. Mandela is scheduled to leave for Grenada at 3 pm.

The programme, which was drawn up by the Government of Trinidad and Tobago and CONCACAF has been described in an advertisement published in yesterday’s Newsday as subject to change. Meanwhile, there will be a touch of nostalgia and almost ironic vindication for most of the 18 persons who had been beaten, arrested and charged by the Police because they had protested outside the Queen’s Park Oval in 1986 against five members of a visiting English Test team, who had played in South Africa, a country still tormented at the time by apartheid. The protesters had identified with Mandela’s long struggle against South Africa’s then policy of racial segregation, under which the country’s indigenous population had been ruthlessly discriminated against.

They are specially invited guests to the rally in honour of Mandela being held at the Oval, outside of which they had been beaten and charged, for protesting the presence in a Test match against the West Indies of the English cricketers, who had defied a United Nations ban against participating in sports against South Africa. The Oval authorities, it should be stated, had nothing to do with the protesters, who included social activist, Clive Nunez, being singled out that day in 1986. Mandela is in Trinidad on his way to the CONCACAF Congress in Grenada in an attempt to win the support of CONCACAF nations for South Africa’s bid to hold the football World Cup series in 2010. And while we are not privy to how the CONCACAF countries will vote, the honour being shown elder statesman Nelson Mandela in Trinidad and Tobago and Grenada may, nonetheless, be a pointer.