Mandela declared that Abacha “is sitting on a volcano
and I am going to explode it under him.”11 But when Mandela returned
to South Africa, he found that no other African country would support
the call for sanctions. South Africa was isolated. The Organization of
African Unity (the precursor to the African Union) publicly castigated
South Africa for having called for such action. No other African country
even protested the executions.