Robert Parry: Honoring Mandela, Not Reagan

[marmar]

from Consortium News:



Honoring Mandela, Not Reagan
December 6, 2013

Exclusive: The U.S. government’s relationship with Nelson Mandela was often strained, from the CIA’s hand in his imprisonment to Ronald Reagan’s veto of a sanctions bill aimed at getting him freed, lost history that must now be reconciled, writes Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry


As Americans honor the memory of Nelson Mandela, they must grapple with the inconvenient truth that one of their most honored recent presidents, Ronald Reagan, fiercely opposed punishing white-ruled South Africa for keeping Mandela locked up and for continuing the racist apartheid system that he challenged.

Rhetorically, Reagan did object to apartheid and did call for Mandela’s release, but Reagan viewed the struggle for racial justice in South Africa through a Cold War lens, leading him to veto a 1986 bill imposing economic sanctions on the Pretoria regime aimed at forcing Mandela’s freedom and compelling the dismantling of apartheid.

In explaining his veto on July 22, 1986, Reagan reserved his harshest criticism for “the Soviet-armed guerrillas of the African National Congress,” a movement that Mandela led. Reagan accused the ANC of having “embarked on new acts of terrorism within South Africa.” He also claimed that “the Soviet Union would be the main beneficiary” of a revolutionary overthrow of the Pretoria regime.

Beyond opposing sanctions that might destabilize the white-supremacist regime, Reagan argued that “the key to the future lies with the South African government.” He called for “not a Western withdrawal but deeper involvement by the Western business community as agents of change and progress and growth.” .......................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://consortiumnews.com/2013/12/06/honoring-mandela-not-reagan/

[indepat]

1. One wonders just how much of post-WWII nefarious activities/intrigue must the CIA's fingerprints be

all over?

[truebluegreen]

2. Just bet on all of them

and you won't be often wrong.

[mountain grammy]

3. "one of their most honored recent presidents" Ronal Reagan?

I gagged on that one.