How SONA was used to announce Mandela's release
When apartheid negotiations reached a sensitive stage in the late 1980s, former President Nelson Mandela was taken to a hospital, where he was diagnosed with Tuberculosis. This was on 12 August 1988. Three months later, and after receiving treatment at two hospitals, the former statesman was then transferred to a house at Victor Verster Prison near Paarl, where he spent the last 14 months of his imprisonment.