US government considered Nelson Mandela a terrorist until 2008

[kpete]

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Until five years ago, however, the U.S. officially considered Mandela a terrorist. During the Cold War, both the State and Defense departments dubbed Mandela’s political party, the African National Congress, a terrorist group, and Mandela’s name remained on the U.S. terrorism watch list till 2008.

Presidents Carter and Reagan and Congress had all instituted sanctions against the white minority South African government because of its policy of racial apartheid. But in 1986, Reagan condemned Mandela’s group, the ANC, which was leading the black struggle against the apartheid regime, saying it engaged in "calculated terror ... the mining of roads, the bombings of public places, designed to bring about further repression."

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The terrorist designation finally proved too embarrassing for the U.S. government to ignore. In April 2008, during the last year of the George W. Bush administration, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told a Senate committee that her department had to issue waivers for ANC members to travel to the United States.

"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.



MORE:
http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/12/07/21794290-us-government-considered-nelson-mandela-a-terrorist-until-2008

[Octafish]

1. Cheney said Mandela was a member of a 'terrorist organization'...

...in defending his Congressional vote in support Mandela's continued imprisonment.

Cheney, after 9-11, was instrumental in remaking the US into a police state where We the People, who stand up against his ilk are labeled "terrorists."