Bulldozers join search for Mandela's gun

JOHANNESBURG, June 22 (Reuters) Bulldozers have joined archaeologists to search for a handgun buried by Mr Nelson Mandela in a former hideout just before he was arrested and jailed by South Africa's apartheid rulers more than 40 years ago.

The gun was given to Mr Mandela by an Ethiopian colonel in 1962 when Mandela travelled secretly out of white-ruled South Africa for military training.

The previous year Mr Mandela had formed Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), or Spear of the Nation, to lead the armed struggle of the African National Congress.

Mr Mandela, now 87, is ''very excited'' about the search, Nicholas Wolpe, son of ANC stalwart Harold Wolpe, said.

Mr Wolpe told Reuters if found, the gun would become an important part of a planned learning centre to be established on the former farm and dedicated to Africa's liberation struggles.

''It's a historical artefact of tremendous sentimental value,'' said Wolpe. ''It could have been the first gun that MK ever got.'' The former president has visited the excavation site on the former Liliesleaf farm, in the Johannesburg suburb of Rivonia, said Wolpe, founder of the Liliesleaf Trust dedicated to preserving the farm as an historic site.

He said records suggested Mandela buried the gun on or about July 25, 1962 -- just under two weeks before he was arrested and tried for incitement and leaving the country illegally.

Mr Mandela has said he and an unidentified comrade buried the weapon along with 200 rounds of ammunition in a 1.5 metre-deep pit some 50 paces from the kitchen of the Rivonia hideout.

The search has been on since 2003 after Mr Mandela visited the site and pointed to a spot, saying: ''It's over there.'' And as the Liliesleaf Trust has gradually come to own more of the site, it has intensified the search, bringing in bulldozers and professional archaeologists in the past two weeks, Wolpe said.

While serving a five-year sentence from incitement trial, Mr Mandela was charged with conspiracy and sabotage in 1963. He and seven comrades were sentenced to life in 1964 and he went on to serve 27 years in apartheid jails.

He was freed in 1990 and went on to be elected South Africa's first black president in 1994.

Reuters SB DB2124