U.S. has Mandela on terrorist list

Source: USA Today

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.



Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-04-30-watchlist_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

---

Idiots!

... "this whole the situation is embarrassing," I thought she was finally talking about her own job performance.

Why does it take an act of Congress to get someone like Mandela removed from the watch list?

Is there someone in our government who supports keeping him on the list?

If so, who and why?

If not, why isn't he off the list immediately, without any action from Congress?

Like I said, simple questions. None of them were asked or answered by USA Today.

to remove such a renown person then I guess the average Joe who ends up on the list is fucked.

we ought to be able to petition Congress to remove our own.....


.....right?

n/t

(?)

unless it's part of the far-right agenda, these days...

:-(

What the hell is going on here?

:scared: :scared: :scared:

Peace,

freefall

To be fair Mandela was the head of MK and they did blow up their fair share of things, I guess it just proves how misleading and objective it is when we use the term terrorist for everyone we don't agree with.

don't we call them freedom fighters?
All a matter of semantics I guess.....

... as you say, it's all a matter of semantics (and bias of course) ...
:shrug:

Not that he's on the list.

Seriously...

The BFEE should be at the top of that list!

commission would understand why the moronic bush administration would consider nelson a terrorist. someone should tell them THEY are the worst group of terrorists since adolph and boys were in town.

Mandela's almost 90, and he's one bad motherfucker!

When Congress started making moves to remove Mandela from the lists, damage control became necessary: Condi rushed over to the Hill to "ask" Congress to act in this way

This is scarcely LBN: the story appeared in GD in early April

Nelson Mandela unable to travel to US because he is on US Terrorist Watch List
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3137423&mesg_id=3137423

that are also on the no-fly list over in the corner.

A dead "terrorist" is no big deal.

which got wildly out of control years ago:

Miami Mayor to Apologize for 'Mandela Moment'

Saturday, July 12, 2003

MIAMI — Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas said Monday he would make an official apology to former South African president Nelson Mandela next week.
"If Mandela were in Miami today, I think he would receive an official welcome." Penelas said.

Thirteen years ago, that was not the case. In June 1990, Miami's politically powerful Cuban exile community protested a visit by Mandela, newly released from a South African prison, for his praise of Fidel Castro , arch-enemy of Cuban exiles but friend of the anti-apartheid movement.

Despite pleas by local African-American leaders, the cities of Miami and Miami Beach, along with Miami-Dade Country, refused to recognize Mandela when he visited the area for a labor conference. The Miami City Commission rescinded a proclamation honoring Mandela.

Tourists angry at the Mandela snub launched a boycott that cost the city $25 million in lost revenue. Business leaders helped end the boycott in 1993, but tensions continued in the 1990s between blacks and Cubans after several incidents where Miami police roughed up Haitians.

Penelas, one of five Florida Democrats running for the U.S. Senate, said there was nothing political about the coming apology, and denies trying to woo black voters.
snip/...)

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,91765,00.html

Hasn't Miami harbored quite a few terrorists? I suppose they aren't terrorists if they act towards our country's policy goals.

the first one in history, living as celebrities in their city. One of them, Orlando Bosch, who was given an administrative pardon by _{George H. W. Bush} who overruled the decision of the U.S. acting Asst. Sec. of the Justice Department, Joe D. Whitley, after 33 countries had refused to admit him, lives there freely, with a day of the year named for him by the Miami City Commissioners, along with recently was freed by the _Bush administration Luis Posada Carriles, along with the entire population of terrorists who have been making raids on Cuba all these many years, murdering, bombing, kidnapping and murdering, etc., etc., etc.

At one point the U.S. FBI named Miami the "Terror Capital of the United States" because of these monsters.

this says more than I could ever say about US Foreign Policy.

Conservative whitewash
Dick Cheney is relying on our cultural amnesia to wipe away his record on South Africa.

By Joe Conason

~snip~
Cheney bristled in response to questions about his voting record, revealing a mindset that never understood what was at stake in South Africa -- or perhaps understood all too well. Challenged last Sunday to defend his 1985 vote against a House resolution urging the release of Nelson Mandela from 23 years of imprisonment, he first denounced such inquiries as "trivia." Does he really think that the oppression inflicted on millions of black citizens during more than five decades was a trivial matter?

He quickly tried to correct that gaffe, praising Mandela as "a great man." (He also remarked, with baffling condescension, that the African leader has "mellowed," whatever that means.) He had opposed the resolution to free Mandela, according to Cheney, because it was attached to recognition of the African National Congress.

"The ANC was then viewed as a terrorist organization," he said. "Nobody was for keeping Nelson Mandela in prison. Nobody was for supporting apartheid." Let's parse that feeble answer, one of several attempts to justify his votes that Cheney has offered in recent days.

The ANC, led of course by Mandela himself, was indeed regarded as "terrorist" by the Pretoria regime and its allies in Washington. But the ANC, which fought militarily and diplomatically for the human rights of South African citizens, was considered a legitimate representative of the black majority by civilized governments almost everywhere else. The resolution Cheney voted against called upon the Pretoria rulers to enter into negotiations with the ANC. That position was endorsed by governments around the world, and has been entirely vindicated by the events that followed.

If the ANC indulged in actions that might be considered "terrorist," it is at least as true that the entire apparatus of apartheid relied upon terrorism against millions of men, women and children. The Sharpsville massacre and literally hundreds of other atrocities committed against South African blacks and their neighbors in other states deserve no other description. That kind of state terrorism didn't much trouble the Reaganite ideologues such as Cheney.

More:
http://dir.salon.com/story/news/col/cona/2000/08/01/south_africa/

cheney is a lying criminal from way back. If the world were fair he and the rest of the BFEE, the world's biggest terror organization, would be on every country's terror watch list.

n/t

And I think they led a righteous struggle that deserved support then and deserves recognition and honor now. This is the flip side of phony war on "terror." Mandela and the ANC led a just armed struggle for freedom.

It's an either/or world for the conservatives. Thinking about this too hard would undoubtedly hurt their delicate brains.

But I think that any Nation or group or movement that targets civilians is a terrorist organization and calling it a rose doesn't make it any sweeter. "Collateral Damage" is a nice word for unprovoked murder, no matter who is doing it.

Just because someone is the underdog that doesn't justify using any tactic... no matter the goal. I wonder how you would feel about testing revolutionary medicines on babies. I'm pretty sure you would say that the two are "different" somehow but the arguement is hollow isn't it?

Mandela didn't, to anyone's knowledge, personally bomb anything, but to this day says that the armed struggle was just and correct, and hails its fighters. Thabo Mbeki led the guerrilla army himself.

Sometimes war is justified. There is just war and unjust war - moral war and immoral war. Mandela was a just and moral figher, while Bush is an unjust and immoral one. One's like is rich and full of meaning, the other meaningless - for nothing at all. It took guns and bombs to destroy fascism and apartheid. I think it's honorable.

The fascists who enforced apartheid were occupiers. Last I checked fighting against occupation is one of the few instances of the legal use of force.

Killing citizens is not the way to go.

He's obviously a horrible threat to us.
He hates us for our freedom.

:eyes:

Source: USA Today

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...



Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-04-30-watchlist_N.htm

helped inflict on the world.

Why does this news not surprise me?

has been and continues to be a hideous embarrassment!

'Cause if Mandela is on the list, then who isn't? At least we know we're in good company.