During a frank interview with Nadira Naipaul as published in the London Evening Standard, Winnie Mandela has expressed her disappointment in her former husband, Nelson Mandela from her Soweto home.

"This name Mandela is an albatross around the necks of my family. You all must realise that Mandela was not the only man who suffered. There were many others, hundreds who languished in prison and died. Many unsung and unknown heroes of the struggle, and there were others in the leadership too, like poor Steve Biko, who died of the beatings, horribly all alone. Mandela did go to prison and he went in there as a burning young revolutionary. But look what came out," she said to Naipaul.

'Mandela let us down'

Mandela pointed to the agreement between the Apartheid government and the ANC that, she says, continues to keep the economy in the hands of white people.

"Mandela let us down. He agreed to a bad deal for the blacks. Economically, we are still on the outside. The economy is very much 'white'. It has a few token blacks, but so many who gave their life in the struggle have died unrewarded."

During the interview she mentioned what it meant for her personally that Nelson Mandela sanctioned FW de Klerk's contribution as that of a person who deserved a Nobel Peace Prize.

"I cannot forgive him for going to receive the Nobel [Peace Prize in 1993] with his jailer [FW] de Klerk. Hand in hand they went. Do you think de Klerk released him from the goodness of his heart? He had to. The times dictated it, the world had changed, and our struggle was not a flash in the pan, it was bloody to say the least and we had given rivers of blood. I had kept it alive with every means at my disposal".

The TRC a 'charade'

Mandela also spoke about the setting up of the Truth and Reconciliation commission and how former Arch-Bishop Desmond Tutu's manipulated it away from its original intention.

"Look at this Truth and Reconciliation charade. He should never have agreed to it," her anger was focused on Mandela, Naipaul writes. "What good does the truth do? How does it help anyone to know where and how their loved ones were killed or buried? That Bishop Tutu who turned it all into a religious circus came here."

"He had the cheek to tell me to appear. I told him a few home truths. I told him that he and his other like-minded cretins were only sitting here because of our struggle and me. Because of the things I and people like me had done to get freedom

'I will never be sorry'

Referring to some current differences between her and Nelson Mandela, she said that she still has public support.

"I am not alone. The people of Soweto are still with me," Mandela said.

"Look what they make him do. The great Mandela. He has no control or say any more. They put that huge statue of him right in the middle of the most affluent "white" area of Johannesburg. Not here where we spilled our blood and where it all started. Mandela is now a corporate foundation. He is wheeled out globally to collect the money and he is content doing that. The ANC have effectively sidelined him but they keep him as a figurehead for the sake of appearance."

Near the end of the interview, Mandela told Naipaul that she had no regrets. "I am not sorry. I will never be sorry. I would do everything I did again if I had to. Everything."