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Nelson Mandela Finally Dropped From Us Terror Watch List - Foreign Affairs - Nairaland

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Nelson Mandela Finally Dropped From Us Terror Watch List by inspiredm(m): 12:06am On Jul 17, 2008
The United States has removed former South African president Nelson Mandela and his African National Congress from a three-decade old immigration watch list for possible terrorists, the White House said Tuesday.

In time for the anti-apartheid leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner's 90th birthday on July 18, President George W. Bush signed a bill Tuesday which effectively ended a system in which Mandela had to get special certification from the US secretary of state that he is not a terrorist in order to visit the United States.

Now Mandela and members of the ANC will be able to simply apply for visas to travel to the United States, the State Department said.

"Today the United States finally has removed from its legal code a vestige of that time of collective insults against human dignity," said House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman, one of the bill's supporters.

"The label of 'terrorist' will no longer be affixed to associates of the ANC -- among them one of the world's great heroes, Nelson Mandela. Our country stands with those who struggled to bring the reprehensible system of apartheid to an end," Berman said.

The measure authorizes US officials "to determine that provisions in the Immigration and Nationality Act that render aliens inadmissible due to terrorist or criminal activities would not apply with respect to activities undertaken in association with the African National Congress in opposition to apartheid rule in South Africa."

Mandela won the Nobel peace price in 1993, and was president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999.

The measure ensures "that there aren't any extra hoops for either a distinguished individual, like former President Mandela, or other members of the African National Congress to get a US visa," said State Department spokesman Tom Casey.

He explained that the original purpose of the law, introduced during the 1980s while Ronald Reagan was president, was to fight terrorism. "So we're pleased that we could make this correction to what is otherwise a good and important piece of legislation," he said.

In April, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged a Senate committee to remove the restrictions on the ANC party, calling it a "rather embarrassing matter that I still have to waive in my own counterpart, the foreign minister of South Africa, not to mention the great leader Nelson Mandela."

When a similar bill passed the House of Representatives last month, Barbara Lee, a California Democrat who co-sponsored it, said she was "especially pleased we are taking this important step to finally right this inexcusable wrong."

Lee and others said the legislation was anachronistic and wrongfully labeled heroes and freedom fighters as terrorists.

Lee recalled that under the original legislation ANC officials could travel to United Nations headquarters in New York but not to Washington or other parts of the United States.

The United States has "moved closer at last to removing the great shame of dishonoring this great leader by including him on our government's terror watch list," Senator John Kerry said after the bill was passed in Congress Friday.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080701/pl_afp/ussafricamandela
Re: Nelson Mandela Finally Dropped From Us Terror Watch List by Radiant(f): 12:32am On Jul 17, 2008
LOL. . . . America and their 'give and take' attitude.
Re: Nelson Mandela Finally Dropped From Us Terror Watch List by SeanT21(f): 1:07am On Jul 17, 2008
Its about Time. Leave the ol man alone.
Re: Nelson Mandela Finally Dropped From Us Terror Watch List by RichyBlacK(m): 5:52am On Jul 17, 2008
The only reason Mandela and other ANC leaders were associated with the word "terrorism" was because the toddler-driven US foreign policy was sympathetic to apartheid South Africa - just as they still support apartheid Israel today!
Re: Nelson Mandela Finally Dropped From Us Terror Watch List by Afam(m): 11:19am On Jul 17, 2008
Even Mandela, a terrorist? The US is sick.
Re: Nelson Mandela Finally Dropped From Us Terror Watch List by grafikdon: 1:10pm On Jul 17, 2008
I think the US throws the word 'terrorist' around like basketball and it doesn't really matter if it goes thru the basket. . . just throw the friggin ball.

Mandela a terrorist. . . I don't have the strength to laugh.
Re: Nelson Mandela Finally Dropped From Us Terror Watch List by Godalone(m): 1:58pm On Jul 17, 2008
It is only a sick person or nation that will call Mandela a terrorist.
Re: Nelson Mandela Finally Dropped From Us Terror Watch List by javalove(m): 2:08pm On Jul 17, 2008
sure, the sickest kontry in d world is US cheesy
Re: Nelson Mandela Finally Dropped From Us Terror Watch List by texazzpete(m): 4:11pm On Jul 17, 2008
To be fair

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_National_Congress
Following the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, the ANC leadership concluded that the methods of non-violence such as those utilised by Gandhi against the British Empire during their colonisation of India were not suitable against the Apartheid system. A military wing was formed in 1961, called Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), meaning "Spear of the Nation", with Mandela as its first leader. MK operations during the 1960s primarily involved targeting and sabotaging government facilities. Mandela was arrested in 1962, convicted of sabotage in 1964 and sentenced to life imprisonment on Robben Island, along with Sisulu and other ANC leaders after the Rivonia Trial.

During the 1970s and 1980s the ANC leadership in exile under Oliver Tambo made the decision to target Apartheid government leadership, command and control, secret police, and military-industrial complex assets and personnel in decapitation strikes, targeted killings, and guerilla actions such as bomb explosions in facilities frequented by military and government personnel. A number of civilians were also killed in these attacks. Examples of these include the Amanzimtoti bombing[3], the Sterland bomb in Pretoria[4], the Wimpy bomb in Pretoria[5], the Juicy Lucy bomb in Pretoria[4] and the Magoo's bar bombing in Durban.[6] ANC acts of sabotage aimed at government institutions included the bombing of the Johannesburg Magistrates Court, the attack on the Koeberg nuclear power station, the rocket attack on Voortrekkerhoogte in Pretoria, and the 1983 Church Street bombing in Pretoria, which killed 16 and wounded 130.



It's easy to go with the gut reaction and condemn away. yes, there should be bafflement that his name has still remained on this list until now, but not that his name was originally there. Once the US State Dept decided to qualify Umkhonto we sizwe (and by extension the ANC) as a terrorist organization, all associates and sympathizers were lumped in.

So yes, it's a late, late move to remove his name from the list, but the sheer amount of vitriol is funny. it's a three decades old list!



RichyBlacK:

The only reason Mandela and other ANC leaders were associated with the word "terrorism" was because the toddler-driven US foreign policy was sympathetic to apartheid South Africa - just as they still support apartheid Israel today!

i dunno, man. The Black South Africans were fighting for rights, for non restriction of political, labour and residential rights. They wanted some form of equality.
Is that a good analogy for Israel where most of their opponents simply want the Jews exterminated? Killed? 'Driven into the sea'?
While the white south africans were probably not enforcing Apartheid from concerns over their personal safety, the Israelis are pretty much perpetually fighting for their lives. Not a good analogy IMHO.


Ironic, isn't it, that the black south africans have since turned into staunch supporters of tyranny in the form of Mugabe. And while we castigate other countries for being sympathetic to apartheid, aren't we Africans too tolerant of tyranny and dictatorship in this country.
Re: Nelson Mandela Finally Dropped From Us Terror Watch List by Kobojunkie: 11:41pm On Jul 17, 2008
Please people,  read up on history!!!

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