Was the ANC wrong for using violence to end a brutal apartheid government?

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.cfr.org/publication/10159/

Introduction

For decades, refusing to negotiate with or recognize terrorists has been a basic precept of U.S. foreign policy. As President Bush said in 2002, "Terror must be stopped. No nation can negotiate with terrorists. For there is no way to make peace with those whose only goal is death." Democratic Party members, too, use this terminology, as do politicians abroad.

Yet recent history suggests that precept may not reflect the realities of modern international politics or the way the United States or other nations actually practice diplomacy. Some groups will always remain, as the English kings used to say of ungovernable parts of Ireland, "beyond the Pale." Al-Qaeda may be one of them. Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist organization wrestling with how to react to its electoral victory, may or may not be another. Often, such groups simply burn out as their primary complaints are overtaken by events, or implode in the face of successful counterterrorism efforts.

However, over the past several decades, some groups widely shunned as terrorists by the international community have managed to beat a well-worn path to negotiations, political legitimacy, and even sovereign power. Here is a look at some prominent transformations.


African National Congress (ANC)

Just twenty years ago, Nelson Mandela sat in prison and black South Africans were forbidden from even spending the night in their country's largest cities. U.S. officials helped justify dealings with the apartheid government by pointing to the ANC's place on the State Department's list of terrorist groups.

After a half-century of practicing nonviolence and community activism, the ANC founded a military wing in 1961 that targeted government facilities, the South African military, and some foreign businesses. In the late 1980s, President FW de Klerk, a man sometimes called "the South African Gorbachev," released Mandela from jail and began talks to bring blacks into the political process. The ANC became a legal political party in 1990, and Mandela was elected president in 1994, just a year after he and de Klerk shared the Nobel Peace Prize. South Africa's current president, Thabo Mbeki, was a key Mandela deputy throughout the ANC's many years in the political wilderness. He remains the most influential of the ANC's leaders.

http://www.anc.org.za/

The day the enemy struck us a blow

It is twenty-five years this week since the assassination of ANC leader Joe Nzingo Gqabi in Ashdown Park, Harare. A quarter of a century after his assassination at the hands of the apartheid government, Joe Gqabi's legacy as a dedicated, disciplined and effective revolutionary leader continues. • More...

[DistressedAmerican]

1. Nelson Mandela TERRORIST!

Should have bombed his ass!

[davidinalameda]

2. Mandela and the ANC were South Africans fighting for freedom

in South Africa

they weren't calling for the destruction of a neighboring country and lobbing rockets across the border and sending suicide bombers into another country to kill it's citizens

[GAPeace]

3. Reagan and the Israelis treated him like a terrorist

He was on the terrorist watch list for how long again?

He hasn't forgotten that experience of the US-Israeli support for Apartheid. Americans may not remember. He does.

[NNN0LHI]

6. Bush met with Mandela at the White House in November 9, 2001...

...http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/11/20011109-9.html

And then Bush removed Mandela from the US terror list in August of 2003.

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3&art_id=ct20030810102700522T600578

Mandela's name comes off US terror list

The good news is that the United States government has removed Nelson Mandela, Tokyo Sexwale and Sidney Mufamadi from its list of global terrorists.

The bad news is that the removal is only for the next 10 years. George Bush, the US president, and consular officials privately informed the three men during Bush's recent visit to South Africa, according to an official US source.

The US state department is reviewing the status of hundreds of listed South Africans. Some were listed for having convictions against them for terrorism, sabotage, treason or related offences against the apartheid state. Others were members of the guerrilla army, Umkhonto we Sizwe.

[GAPeace]

7. Not until 2003 are you serious?!

Our nation is shameful.

[killbotfactory]

9. Mandela is friends with Castro

and the Cubans gave them military support while asking nothing in return.

of course he was a terrorist.

[fishwax]

8. particularly relevant given our current vice president's support of the

apartheid regime.

[JackNewtown]

4. How about the Irgun, Stern gang, etc. terror that "liberated" Israel?

We don't need to cite the ANC to debate Palestinian terror. Israel itself used terror when it was occupied, and then rewarded several former terrorists, including two former leaders of terror groups, Shamir and Begin, with Israel's prime ministership. An anti-terror pro-terror former Israeli prime minister and leader of the opposition Likud Party celebrated that terror just a week or two...

[tabatha]

5. ANC violence

For the most part the violence was by the police on the Blacks.
Protests that were supposed to be peaceful, turned violent because of the actions of the police.
The armed wing of the ANC was formed to combat the militancy and brutality of the government.
Violence by the ANC was very small and over many years compared to what has gone on in Iraq the last 3-4 years.
One of the most important factors however was the economy.
As a result of sanctions, the Rand devalued enormously until it became clear that Apartheid was a failed policy.