Nelson Mandela and the Time for an Official Apology by Norman Markowitz

by: Thursday 5 December 2013

Nelson Mandela, one of the major figures in the liberation struggles of the 20th century, has died at the age of 95.  Mandela, who led the struggle for the liberation of the people of South Africa from the Apartheid Regime, a monstrous relic of Hitler Fascism in Africa propped up for their profit by the U.S. and its allies from its beginning in 1948 to its end in 1990, will be  officially hailed everywhere, even though what that struggle was all about will be sanitized in most of the capitalist world's media

 

But there is something that should be stated right now, remembered and demanded.  Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison, 18 of them in the infamous Robbins Island prison, before his release as the Apartheid state crumbled.  The Central Intelligence Agency, working with the Apartheid regime's intelligence service, played a central role in his capture, which was subsequently admitted by former CIA officials and published as a news story in the New York Times.  When a freed Mandela first visited the U.S. and met with president George HW Bush(himself for a brief period a former CIA director) Bush both expressed friendship and gave Mandela a silly lecture on the superiority of capitalism over socialism for the new democratic South Africa.  When a reporter aske Bush's press secretary, Marlin Fitzwater, about a possible apology for the CIA's actions, Fitzwater became angry and replied that these events took place over two decades before and had nothing to do with the Bush administration.

Well, that was more than two decades ago.  The Obama administration owes it to the people of South Africa, the people of the world, to issue such an apology now, in the name of the American people.  It is too bad that Mandela did not live long enough to receive that apology.   But it would be worth far more than all the hypocritical tributes from the political and business leaders who are the successors to those who propped up the Apartheid regime during its terrible existence.   It would also be a blow against racism, which feeds on denial and historical amnesia

 

 

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  • Millions and millions of oppressed and exploited peoples, including the whole body of the Negro People(with South African whites) of South Africa many victims of racist and religious persecution, while king capitalism and imperialism decimated their resources, chief among them their labor power, have perished and been ruined at the hands of what W. E. B. Du Bois called the "White Masters of the World".
    As professor Markowitz writes, the infamous CIA has been a primary oppressor organization. It has hunted, hounded, poisoned, shot, maligned, conspired, directly and indirectly, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of freedom fighters and liberators like Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela(Madiba) and Madiba himself.
    Moreover, it has orchestrated both secret and open wars against struggling and victorious humanity, challenging all labor, all anti-imperialism, especially labor of color, with murderous vengeance.
    That is why, for instance, the great Cuban people, with their socialism appeared of the historical stage to help consolidate the great Southwest African peoples'(Namibia's) victory against Apartheid.
    This event completely exposes the capitalist and imperialist lie of anti-socialism and anti-communism.
    To start to understand the costs, both in human and monetary terms, we have to look at analyses like Norman Markowitz's PA article of recent date, "The Price of Imperialism".
    After the famous AD (Angela Davis)Committees evolved into the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, which struggled for the abolition of both the racist and anti-communist, anti-human CIA and FBI, we have not been able to organize a movement which would complete this goal.
    Along with demanding the official apology, let us organize the political will to shut down the CIA, for good.
    What a tribute this would be to Madiba, and all freedom fighters.

    Posted by E.E.W. Clay, 12/06/2013 10:40am (11 years ago)

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