Nelson Mandela On U.S. Terrorist Watch List
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Hat tip to Adrianne @ BlackWomenInEurope for the story.
- U.S. has Mandela on terrorist list
By Mimi Hall, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Nobel Peace Prize winner and international symbol of freedom Nelson Mandela is flagged on U.S. terrorist watch lists and needs special permission to visit the USA. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice calls the situation “embarrassing,” and some members of Congress vow to fix it.
The requirement applies to former South African leader Mandela and other members of South Africa’s governing African National Congress (ANC), the once-banned anti-Apartheid organization. In the 1970s and ’80s, the ANC was officially designated a terrorist group by the country’s ruling white minority. Other countries, including the United States, followed suit.
Because of this, Rice told a Senate committee recently, her department has to issue waivers for ANC members to travel to the USA.
“This is a country with which we now have excellent relations, South Africa, but it’s frankly 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,” Rice said.
Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., chairman of the House International Relations Committee, is pushing a bill that would remove current and former ANC leaders from the watch lists. Supporters hope to get it passed before Mandela’s 90th birthday July 18.
The South African government brutalizes the people; the people dare to defend themselves, and the U.S. government takes up for the criminal, abusive, human rights trampling Apartheid government.
This sort of thing shows America’s true colors. This is why American’s who don’t worship at the alter of blind patriotism don’t believe we went into Iraq to help the Iraq people. This is why so many Black people weren’t too upset about the Jeremiah Wright loop.
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