Crocodile tears to mask US imperialism's role as the enemy of African liberation.
July 18, 2013 - Today is Nelson Mandela's 95th birthday, but forget the crocodile
tears from the U.S. government about Mandela's poor health. Imperialist
diplomacy with all of its sugar-coated phrases is nothing more than a
form of historical perjury.
Nelson Mandela’s arrest in 1962, which led to 18 of his 27 years of
imprisonment on Robbins Island, was based on the work of the CIA. The
CIA and the National Security Agency worked as partners with the racist,
apartheid regime’s vicious military and intelligence services.
Mandela was a leader of the African National Congress (ANC) that
organized civil resistance and an armed struggle against South Africa’s
white racist apartheid regime. The United States and the other western
capitalist governments supported the racist, fascist apartheid regime.
Mandela was labeled a terrorist by the United States. So was the
entire ANC. Even as late as 2008 the U.S. State Department had to pass
special waivers so that Mandela or any ANC leader could visit the United
States because he and the ANC were still on the “terrorist watch list.”
The ANC’s struggle for Black majority rule and the liquidation of
apartheid received critical support from Cuba, the Soviet Union and
other socialist countries. The ANC had an active alliance with South
African Communist Party in the struggle for Black majority rule.
Even after the fall of the apartheid government ANC members applying
for visas to the USA were flagged for questioning and forced to ask for
waivers to enter the country. Former ANC chairman Tokyo Sexwale was
denied a visa in 2002
In 2007, Barbara Masekela, South Africa's ambassador to the United
States until the year prior was denied a visa to visit a dying cousin
living in the United States.
U.S. Imperialism was the enemy of African Liberation
The CIA and NSA spy services—with the full collaboration of such
transnational corporations at IBM, Kodak and many others—worked at all
levels and for decades for apartheid and against the African National
Congress activists who were routinely murdered, tortured and sentenced
to life terms in the hell holes of South Africa.
The ANC was labeled and treated as a terrorist organization and
pro-communist by the CIA and successive U.S. administrations, Democratic
and Republican alike. Congress, too, was an enthusiastic cheerleader
for this vile partnership with the planet’s most disgustingly racist
regime.
The House of Representatives only voted to call for Nelson Mandela’s
release from prison in 1986 when it was clear that the fascist apartheid
regime’s days were numbered, leading the United States and Britain to
abruptly shift course and broker a negotiated end to the white
supremacist system. A mass worldwide anti-apartheid movement had
completely isolated South Africa. Dick Cheney voted against the House
resolution in 1986, pointing out that the U.S. government was still
retaining the ANC on the official U.S. “terrorist list.”
The U.S. and Britain knew the end had finally come for the usefulness
of the apartheid government when its seemingly invincible military was
decisively defeated by the Angolan army and thousands of Cuban
volunteers in the historic battle of Cuito Canavale.
As Mandela said, “When Africa called, Cuba answered.”
Shameless duplicity
In an act of shameless duplicity, once Mandela was released from
prison, each successive U.S. administration has pretended that the
United States was always opposed to Mandela’s imprisonment and stood
with him against apartheid.
After getting out of prison, Mandela came to the United States to
meet President George H.W. Bush on June 25, 1990. He was being touted as
a hero and a champion in the fight against racism. The U.S. government,
working through propagandists in the corporate-owned media, tried to
instill a society-wide case of amnesia about the fact that they were the
defenders of apartheid and directly responsible for Mandela’s
imprisonment.
But one reporter had the gall to ask an unscripted question.
Bush’s press secretary, Marlin Fitzwater, was asked in the days
before the June 25 meeting with Bush whether the president would
apologize to Mandela for the U.S. role in his arrest.
Fitzwater was angry and caught off guard. He said, "I just don't like
it when people question our motives on blacks or on Mandela because of
an incident that happened 20 years ago in another administration."
Today, on Mandela's 95th birthday and when the U.S. government
celebrates Mandela, will any of the corporate media expose the bloody
role of the CIA, NSA and other U.S. intelligence services in their war
against the African liberation movements?
Nelson Mandela is a beacon for the oppressed. He is a hero and he
will be remembered as such. Not true for the CIA and NSA which worked as
the spy service for the racist, apartheid regime as it hunted down and
captured Mandela and captured or killed his comrades.
Source: ANSWER Coalition
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