NELSON MANDELA launched a new attack on President Bush yesterday, indicating that he would refuse to meet him in protest at the war in Iraq.

Mr Mandela’s outburst is expected to rule out what little prospect there may have been for a meeting between the two men, making Mr Bush the first visiting leader to avoid seeking an audience with the former President of South Africa.

In the latest of a series of attacks on the White House, Mr Mandela, 84, bluntly condemned Mr Bush for bypassing the collective will of the United Nations in deciding to depose Saddam Hussein by force.

“Since the creation of the United Nations, there has not been a war since 1945,” Mr Mandela said. “Therefore, for anybody, especially the leader of a superstate, to act outside the United Nations is something that must be condemned by everybody who wants peace.”

Mr Mandela, who earlier denounced Mr Bush as a reckless leader who “cannot think properly,” and was prepared to plunge the world into a “holocaust” over Iraq, was speaking after a meeting with Dominique de Villepin, the French Foreign Minister.

“For any country to leave the United Nations and attack an independent country must be condemned in the strongest possible terms,” Mr Mandela said.

He said that he was “very happy with the attitude taken by President Chirac”, who opposed the war.

Mr Bush, who will be making his first trip to Africa next month, including visits to Senegal, South Africa, Botswana, Nigeria and Uganda, has made no attempt to contact Mr Mandela, whose forthright criticisms introduced a severe chill in diplomatic relations between Pretoria and Washington.

Asked whether he would repeat his criticisms of Mr Bush’s unilateral policy in Iraq, Mr Mandela said: “You assume that he is going to meet me. I wouldn’t make that assumption.”

He added: “I have said what I wanted to say, and I don’t have to repeat it.”

Mr Mandela, who celebrates his 85th birthday next month, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in helping to negotiate South Africa’s transition from white-minority rule to multiracial democracy at a time when most observers were convinced that the country would be engulfed in a racial blood bath.

His life-long fight against apartheid, during which he spent 27 years in prision, earned him a reputation as the great conciliator, and a man who would not allow his dream of a multiracial democracy to be sabotaged by a desire for retribution and revenge for the suffer- ing endured by the black majority.

Mr Mandela’s international reputation as Africa’s elder statesman has made it obligatory for international leaders visiting South Africa to pay a courtesy call on the former anti-apartheid leader. Everyone from President Clinton to the Spice Girls and David Beckham have sought an audience with South Africa’s living legend.

The failure of the two men to meet will be a setback to Mr Bush’s visit. Some African critics insist that his five-day tour is more about trying to project him as a global statesman before next year’s presidential election, in which he is seeking to garner electoral support from America’s ethnic minorities, than its stated purpose of promoting democracy and anti-Aids campaigns in Africa. The US recently approved a $15 billion programme to stem the spread of HIV-Aids in Africa and the Caribbean.

The United States has also increased development assistance to sub-Saharan Africa by more than 30 per cent since Mr Bush came to office, which is expected to increase by 50 per cent over the next three years. Although President Mbeki, who succeeded Mr Mandela in 1999, has been more restrained in his criticism of Washington, differences over Iraq and Zimbabwe, along with South Africa’s long- standing ties with Libya and Cuba, has strained relations between the two countries.

Explore World News

• World Agenda

• Iraq News

• US & Americas News

• Europe News

• Middle East News

• Asia News

• Africa News

• Ireland News

Times Recommends

• The Japanese Prime Minister is doomed: or is he?
• Brighton company 'involved in cyber attack'
• The art of survival: it’s all in the mind