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The Day Mandela Was Arrested, With A Little Help From the CIA

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Re: The Day Mandela Was Arrested, With A Little Help From the CIA

#21

Post by scarmig »

powertower wrote: post #16
scarmig wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unclear what you mean by that, but to the extent that it implies ANC reprisals or a race war, it's ridiculous.

Good luck with the pretending that whites aren't targeted out of hate in South Africa. http://www.genocidewatch.org/southafrica.html http://www.thetruthaboutsouthafrica.com/p/white-genocide-in-...

I figured the 70k number came from crime counts or something similar, since it's easy to build up non-negligible numbers pretty easily when 50 people are murdered in your country per day, which is the case in South Africa.

But individual crimes, even crimes partially or wholly racially motivated, do not make for a race war or genocide.

Re: The Day Mandela Was Arrested, With A Little Help From the CIA

#22

Post by scarmig »

jd_free wrote: post #18

Coverage of Mandela is a testament to the prevailing powers' ability to rewrite history. Millions of people think he was put in jail for protesting apartheid or something else noble. He was actually a terrorist leader - his group killed thousands of innocents in bombings and other attacks. The "activism" he's credited with while in prison was mostly arranging more killings. Read about a practice his group created whi…

You can read more about the crimes his group was involved in in the proceedings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission established after the abolition of apartheid.

Re: The Day Mandela Was Arrested, With A Little Help From the CIA

#23

Post by garg »

jd_free wrote: post #18

Coverage of Mandela is a testament to the prevailing powers' ability to rewrite history. Millions of people think he was put in jail for protesting apartheid or something else noble. He was actually a terrorist leader - his group killed thousands of innocents in bombings and other attacks. The "activism" he's credited with while in prison was mostly arranging more killings. Read about a practice his group created whi…

From what I am reading all this happened while he was in prison. ANC had violent members while Mandela was in prison but how does that implicate Mandela? Desmund Tutu saved a man from Necklacing so why then would he be such an ardent supporter of Mandela?

Re: The Day Mandela Was Arrested, With A Little Help From the CIA

#24

Post by munificent »

pjc50 wrote: post #17
snrip wrote: post #2

F*ck apartheid, but for all I know Mandela pretty much deserved to go to jail. Big disgrace if the CIA actively sponsored this regime, but the allegations in the article are just from one source not directly related to the affairs. All the "Who knows" and "My guess" doesn't make the case any stronger.

Some background from Mandela himself: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/apr/23/nelsonmandela It's important to note the date of this speech at his trial, April 20 1964, _before_ the passing of the US civil rights act (July 2 the same year); so at this time parts of the US had apartheit-like conditions.

It does a disservice to the facts of apartheid to compare the US in 1964 to SA at the same time. While, yes, there were many many racial problems in the US, there were no race-based federal laws. The Civil Rights Act was passed to prohibit racial laws at the state level. Meanwhile, in South Africa:

All citizens had to carry a card identifying their race. (Population Registration Act)

It was specifically legally allowed to segregate public facilities (parks, hospitals, transportation, etc.). In addition, facilities were specifically allowed to be unequal for different races or even non-existent. (Reservation of Separate Amenities Act)

Property was legally divided by race and you could only live in areas alloted to your race. (Group Areas Act)

Federal law controlled which jobs you were allowed to hold based on your race. High skill jobs were reserved for whites and blacks were prohibited from holding them. (Mines and Works Act, Native Building Workers Act)

Blacks were legally prohibited from striking or forming unions. Whites had no such restriction. (Native Labour (Settlement of Disputes) Act, Industrial Conciliation Act)

Schools were legally segregated by race, which led (either intentionally or not) to radically inferior schooling for blacks. In the 70s, per capita spending on black education was one-tenth of the spending on white. (Bantu Education Act, Extension of University Education Act et. al.)

It was a federal crime, punishable by up to five years in prison to engage in inter-racial sex involving a white person. Inter-racial marriage was likewise outlawed. (Immorality Act, Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act)

And this is just the beginning. There were dozens of other pieces of legislation that specifically encoded race-based selection into federal law. It's astonishing how horrendous South Africa was in a time where most other developed countries were what we think of as "modern".

Re: The Day Mandela Was Arrested, With A Little Help From the CIA

#25

Post by larrys »

jd_free wrote: post #18

Coverage of Mandela is a testament to the prevailing powers' ability to rewrite history. Millions of people think he was put in jail for protesting apartheid or something else noble. He was actually a terrorist leader - his group killed thousands of innocents in bombings and other attacks. The "activism" he's credited with while in prison was mostly arranging more killings. Read about a practice his group created whi…

You've raised some interesting points and I don't know enough to know if this is correct (other than what you are referring to and I don't even come close to knowing how to vet anything on this). But I do know that currently Mandela is seen as a saint (just watching the news last night alone would tell you that).

So I wonder if anyone with mainstream credibility has written or will write some definite document that confirms or denies what people are saying on either side of this issue?

Re: The Day Mandela Was Arrested, With A Little Help From the CIA

#26

Post by mrleinad »

jd_free wrote: post #18

Coverage of Mandela is a testament to the prevailing powers' ability to rewrite history. Millions of people think he was put in jail for protesting apartheid or something else noble. He was actually a terrorist leader - his group killed thousands of innocents in bombings and other attacks. The "activism" he's credited with while in prison was mostly arranging more killings. Read about a practice his group created whi…

This is the same bull*t that is thrown at Castro, Che Guevara, and many others. You can't make a revolution without guns, when the other side has all the power and lots of guns as well. Almost all independence wars (and I say almost, because there's this nice dude Gandhi, but I'm not sure it was an actual war) were fought with weapons, not with flowers and nice thoughts. If you're from the US you should know better, considering that your Constitution clearly states (paraphrasing) that you have a right to bear arms, in case the government tries to take away your freedoms.

Re: The Day Mandela Was Arrested, With A Little Help From the CIA

#27

Post by lostlogin »

dingaling wrote: post #8
dragonwriter wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Big disgrace if the CIA actively sponsored this regime The US was the apartheid regime's next-to-last overt ally (Israel was the last -- and proliferated nuclear weapons technology to South Africa) -- US overt support ending only late in the Reagan Administration under intense public and Congressional pressure -- and its not really the worst regime the US backed as a bulwark against Communism. Regardless of whether…

In what form do you see that overt support? The USA was very stringent in adhering to the progressively tighter UN arms embargoes and once the supplies from France ceased this caused SA to look towards Israel, Taiwan and Argentina for military equipment ( the latter two mainly as covert import channels, Israel as a partner ). Occasional US arms did appear in SADF service but only as grey imports. SA intel and SADF he…

Was doing some reading after seeing your comment and stumbled on this State Department site. What it says was new to me (I'm not American). Here it is if anyone else is interested. http://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/pcw/98678.htm

Re: The Day Mandela Was Arrested, With A Little Help From the CIA

#28

Post by bilbo0s »

jd_free wrote: post #18

Coverage of Mandela is a testament to the prevailing powers' ability to rewrite history. Millions of people think he was put in jail for protesting apartheid or something else noble. He was actually a terrorist leader - his group killed thousands of innocents in bombings and other attacks. The "activism" he's credited with while in prison was mostly arranging more killings. Read about a practice his group created whi…

I downvoted you and wanted to explain, as the downvote was not for your content.

I, as a rule, downvote posts by sparsely populated, recently created accounts. Reason being, I generally believe them to be throwaway accounts created for the purposes of spamming and trolling. I think it does a disservice to HN to engage in that behavior.

I wanted to give you some advice on how to avoid downvotes in the future. If you have something to say... say it on your own account is probably the best piece of advice. Also, if you really are a new member, perhaps you could put more profiling information in the account you create so that people don't ascribe malevolent intent to your activities. I know that the older members don't need to do so... but they have a track record of useful contributions to discussions.

Lastly, if you are not a spammer or troll... Welcome to HN.

Re: The Day Mandela Was Arrested, With A Little Help From the CIA

#30

Post by lostlogin »

munificent wrote: post #24
pjc50 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some background from Mandela himself: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/apr/23/nelsonmandela It's important to note the date of this speech at his trial, April 20 1964, _before_ the passing of the US civil rights act (July 2 the same year); so at this time parts of the US had apartheit-like conditions.

It does a disservice to the facts of apartheid to compare the US in 1964 to SA at the same time. While, yes, there were many many racial problems in the US, there were no race-based federal laws. The Civil Rights Act was passed to prohibit racial laws at the state level. Meanwhile, in South Africa: All citizens had to carry a card identifying their race. (Population Registration Act) It was specifically legally allow…

There is nothing modern about the way the US treated race politics in the 1960s. It was appalling and a lot worse than many other countries - South Africa being a notable exception. It still puzzles me the amount race comes up in American TV shows. They are loaded with lame race based jokes which indicates to me that all still isn't right, and how could it be when my parents' generation can remember events of the 1960s. I live in New Zealand, and it would be untrue to claim race and racism aren't a problem here, but I think that the situation is slightly better although we have appalling stats for Maori and Pacific Islanders where health, life expectancy, poverty and education are concerned. I could be wrong but it recall reading that the Maori are the worlds most imprisoned race.
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