THE FLAGSHIP of Mr Tony O'Reilly's South African newspaper company is at the centre of an acrimonious dispute between President Nelson Mandela and unnamed black journalists, writes Patrick Laurence in Johannesburg President Mandela has been criticised sharply by the Star's political editor, Mr Kaiser Nyatsumba, in an article entitled "Even St Mandela has clay feet". The President responded with accusations that unnamed black journalists had allowed themselves to be co-opted by the "white controlled conservative media" to do "their dirty work".

The unidentified black journalists are alleged to have reported negatively on the ruling ANC and its leaders for career advancement. The Star has since hit back in an editorial entitled "Mandela's phantom foes".

The editorial, published yesterday, accuses Mr Mandela of conducting a "personal smear campaign against unnamed senior black journalists" and turning with a vengeance on people who incontestably want the government and the country to succeed." It asserts that its senior political writers, all black, are part of an honourable "brotherhood of black journalists" and that by besmirching them Mr Mandela "taints both himself and the country".

The opposite page contains articles by two ANC parliamentarians, Mr Carl Niehaus and Mr Tony Yegeni, which sharply criticise the Star's coverage of the ANC in the past few weeks.

Their attack on the Star comes in the wake of an ANC statement labelling a recent front page report on a briefing given to the ANC national executive by Mr Mandela as "superficial sensationalism".

The report interprets an assurance from Mr Mandela that he has not chosen his successor because that is the prerogative of the ANC's national conference as a rebuff for Deputy President Thabo Mbeki. The ANC insists that it was a mere reaffirmation of ANC policy.

Mr Nyatsumba write's of Mr Mandela. "He makes much of his commitment to collective leadership but rules his organisation with an iron fist. .. Mandela is an ordinary man with feet of clay."