Nelson Mandela. Free at last.

[Peter Lemkin]

[Magda Hassan]

The Mandela Barbie

Friday, December 13, 2013
I can't take it anymore. All week, I've watched Nelson Mandela reduced to a Barbie doll. From Fox News to the Bush family, the politicians and media mavens who body-blocked the anti-Apartheid Movement and were happy to keep Mandela behind bars, now get to dress his image up in any silly outfit they choose.
It's more nauseating than hypocrisy and ignorance. The Mandela Barbie (CONTINUED BELOW)

tells us in a squeaky little doll voice, not his own, that apartheid is now "defeated" - to quote the ridiculous headline in the Times.
Poor Mandela. When he's not a doll, he's a statue. He joins Martin Luther King as another bronzed monument whose use is to serve a new version of racism, Apartheid 2.0, worsening both in South Africa - and in the USA. The ruling class creates commemorative dolls and statues of revolutionary leaders as a way to tell us their cause is won, so go home. For example, just six months ago, the US Supreme Court overturned the key parts of the Voting Rights Act, Dr. King's greatest accomplishment, on the specious claim that, "Blatantly discriminatory evasions are rare," and Jim Crow voting practices are now "eradicated."
"Eradicated?" On what planet? The latest move by Florida Republicans to purge 181,000 voters of color - like the stench from the shantytowns of Cape Town - makes clear that neither Jim Crow nor Apartheid have been defeated. They're just in temporary retreat.
Nevertheless, our betters in the USA and Europe have declared that King slew segregation, Mandela defeated apartheid; and therefore, the new victims of racial injustice should just shut the f$#! up and stop whining.
The Man Who Walked Beside Mandela
To replace the plastic and metal Mandelas with flesh and blood, I spoke to Danny Schechter. Schechter knew Mandela personally, and more deeply, than any other American journalist. One of the great reporters of our generation, Schechter produced South Africa Now, a weekly program seen on PBS, from 1988-91, bringing Mandela's case to Americans dumbed and numbed by Ronald Reagan's red-baiting.
Schechter notes that George W. Bush kept Mandela on the Terrorist Watch List no kidding even after Mandela was elected President.
Schechter has just completed the difficult job of making the official documentary companion to the Hollywood version of Mandela's life, Long Walk to Freedom.
The fictional movie is about triumph and forgiveness. Schechter's documentary, Inside Mandela, and book, Madiba A to Z: The Many Faces of Nelson Mandela, has this aplenty. But knowing Mandela, Schechter includes Mandela's anger, despair and his pained legacy: a corroded South Africa still ruled by a brutal economic apartheid. Today, the average white family has five times the income of a black family. Welcome to "freedom."
The US and European press have focused on Mandela's saintly ability to abjure bitterness and all desire for revenge, and for his Christ-like forgiveness of his captors. This is to reassure us all that "good" revolutionaries are ones who don't hold anyone to account for murder, plunder and blood-drenched horror - or demand compensation. That's Mandela in his Mahatma Gandhi doll outfit - turning the other cheek, kissing his prison wardens.
Schechter doesn't play with dolls. He knew Mandela the man - and Mandela as one among a group of revolutionary leaders.
Mandela's circle knew this: You can't forgive those you defeat until you defeat them.
Despite the hoo-hah, Mandela didn't defeat apartheid with "nice" alone. In the 1980s, says Schechter, South African whites faced this reality: The Cubans who defeated South African troops in neighboring Angola could move into South Africa. The Vietnamese who had defeated the mighty USA were advising the ANC military force. Mandela was Commander-in-Chief.
And so, while Mandela held out a hand in forgiveness - in his other hand he held Umkhonto we Sizwe, a spear to apartheid's heart. And Mandela's comrades tied a noose: an international embargo, leaky though it was, that lay siege to South Africa's economy.
Seeing the writing on the wall (and envisioning their blood on the floor), the white-owned gold and diamond cartels, Anglo-American and DeBeers, backed by the World Bank, came to Mandela with a bargain: black Africans could have voting power . . . but not economic power.
Mandela chose to shake hands with this devil and accept the continuation of economic apartheid. In return for safeguarding the diamond and gold interests and protecting white ownership of land, mines and businesses, he was allowed the presidency, or at least the office and title.
It is a bargain that ate at Mandela's heart. He was faced with the direct threat of an embargo of capital, and taking note of the beating endured by his Cuban allies over resource nationalization, Mandela swallowed the poison with a forced grin. Yes, a new South African black middle class has been handed a slice of the mineral pie, but that just changes the color of the hand holding the whip.
The 1% Rainbow
In the end, all revolutions are about one thing: the 99% versus the 1%. Time and history can change the hue of the aristocrat, but not their greed, against which Mandela appeared nearly powerless.
So was Mandela's life a waste, his bio-pic a fraud? Not at all. No man is a revolution.
We have much to learn from Mandela's long view of history, his much-lauded pacific warm-heartedness as well as his much-concealed cold and cruel resolve. The crack in the prison wall of apartheid, the end of racial warfare, if not yet racial peace, is a real accomplishment of Mandela - and his comrade revolutionaries - most of whose names will never be cast in bronze.
Reading Schechter's new book Madiba (as Mandela is known to Black South Africans) and seeing Schechter's un-Hollywood film, you can take away one strong impression: From Moses to Martin to Mandela, our prophets never reach the Promised Land.
That is for us still to accomplish. The journey is long. Start walking.
http://www.gregpalast.com/the-mandela-barbie/

[Peter Lemkin]

Kasrils is a very good man and IMO clearsighted analyst [as well as close friend of] Mandela. I think he knew what Faustian bargain the ANC made a little under Mandela, and has increased since Mandela...and that Mandela regretted his role in that 'bargain' and detested the changes that came after his Presidency via the ANC and others then in power in S.A. This, however, doesn't stop Kasrils nor myself from holding Mandela high up there for his values and deeds. He was a pragmatist in some of his actions, at times; a Utopian, freedom fighter and dreamer in his ethical philosophy and politics.

The Shifting Economics of the ANC: From Liberation Movement to…

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Leading anti-apartheid activist and former South African Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils told "Democracy Now!" on Thursday that the African National Congress led by Nelson Mandela made a "Faustian pact" with neo-liberalism to end the official policy of segregation and avoid civil war.
Kasrils, who was on the ANC's National Executive Committee for 20 years, told "Democracy Now!":

The fact is that if Mandela had a Marxist orientation, which he certainly did, I would say, for some time, that was dispelled when he emerges from prison 30 years or so later, where he immediately, in a majorhis first address to our people, he commits himself to the socialist-inclined Freedom Charter and the clause, that is quite emphatic, although it doesn't use the word "nationalization," that says that what we committed to is the control of the hearts of the economy, the mines, the banks, the monopoly industry, and it's inconceivable that that will change. Right."
"Two years later, he shows a totally different view on the economy by going to Davos, 1992, July, very impressed, clearly, as he was in South Africa, by the voice of monopoly capital. I'm not saying he bows down to it, but he is certainly impressed in terms of what they're able to do, and comes back from Davos and says that for growth of the economy, we've got to look to the private sector. And he says that it's clear that if we go for radical, socialist approachhe uses the term "nationalization"we're not going to get the foreign investment from the capitalist world that we need to make the country run and to overcome our poverty. So it's a total change."

Hear the rest of Kasrils' comments

Democracy Now!': http://www.democracynow.org/2013/12/12/f...ie_kasrils

Speaking from Johannesburg, leading anti-apartheid activist and former South African Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils discusses the evolution of the African National Congress' economic views from its time as a liberation movement to leading South Africa after the fall of apartheid. Kasrils says the ANC was forced to make a "Faustian pact" with neoliberalism in order to bring apartheid to an end and avoid civil war. He also discusses recent reports that Mandela was a member of the South African Communist Party. Kasrils was on the National Executive Committee of the ANC for 20 years, serving as minister for intelligence services from 2004 to 2008.
Click here to watch part 1 of this interview.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Ronnie Kasrils, you mentioned this whole dynamic of those few white South Africans who joined with or became part of the ANC. I'm wondering how extensive was the involvement of white revolutionaries and radicals in the movement. Did you have the kind of tensions within the ANC that obviously developed in the United States and other parts of the world as the Black Power or Black Consciousness Movement developed? Were there splits that began developing between the white comrades and the African or black comrades? And how did you work those out?
RONNIE KASRILS: OK, I think there's quite a lot of similarities, to a degreeobviously, no places are the samebetween America's experienceand I'm thinking of the Deep South, the struggle against slavery and for civil rights and those experiences of African Americans that I've referred to that faced people in South Africa.
And then, in terms of the nonracial nature of the struggle, the numbers of whites who became involved were really few. They were exceptional people, people of great quality and education and bravery, like Bram Fischer and Ruth First or Joe Slovo. They had been in the Communist Party, which started off in the 1920s as basically abasically white involvement of a few hundred people. It was never big. And they tended to come from the British trade union movement, on the one hand, and, as in America, as immigrants out of Eastern Europe, and particularly Tsarist Russia, a lot of Jewish people who had some background with the Mensheviks or the Bolsheviks or the Jewish Bund of the Russian Empire. So, it was a party that starts off that way.
But by the '30s and the '40s, with the large influx of black workers, it begins to change. And black workers, like Moses Kotane, J.B. Marks, Duma Nokwe, come to the fore. They also are African nationalists. And the thing is, they were able to also be members and became leaders, with the likes of nationalists like Mandela and Tambo of the African National Congress. So, initially, in the period of the '40s and into the '50s, there was quite a lot of tension. And Mandela is a perfect example or reflection of this. As an African nationalist, he is a bit weary of the communists, and particularly those with the white skin. He regards Marxism in that early period as something that's outside of Africa, and therefore foreign. And he's very typical of African nationalism with those particular fears. There's a white Liberal Party led by Alan Paton that tends to be anti-communist, that is not as active as the white communists and, in terms of its goals, doesn't even accept full universal franchise. So, as the African National Congress, under Mandela and Tambo, into the '50s begins to become very active, highly militant, and mobilizes by the tens of thousands, the African people of whom huge percentage tends to be people from labor, working-class people, and so the character of that African National Congress and its leaders, like Mandela, begins to change.
And the big error that Afrikaans nationalism makes is that it deals with the communists, black or white, and the nationalists, the African nationalists, in the same way, and they repressed, and they banned, and they house-arrested, and they imprisoned. So, the two come together. Iinstead of going for the black-white race aspect, let's think of South Africa as having two deep cleavages: that of race, the black-white divide, and that of class, capital and labor. And these two dividesone which gives rise to trade unions, to socialists and the Communist Party; the other, the race divide or national oppression of black peoplegives rise to the African nationalism, under the repression of apartheid and backed up by its courts and jails and judges and, of course, the brutality of its police and army. So the two cleavagesthe divides and those who reflect themcome closer together. And I would say that's a period when Mandela casts off his suspicion of the communists and even an element of anti-communism, and a tremendous unity emerges in the struggle of the '50s.
The defiance campaign, defiance of unjust laws, some have similarities with the American civil rights movement, where blacks and whites, volunteers led by Mandela, would go and occupy whites-only spaces in the post offices, in the railway stations, the park benchesall these everyday manifestations of apartheid. People were thrown into jail, and very, very seriouslyvery serious laws were passed, like five years' jail sentence for a black man sitting on a white man's bench in a park, and vice versa. And
AMY GOODMAN: Ronnie Kasrils, let me ask you
RONNIE KASRILS: this leads toyeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Was Presidentdid Nelson Mandela become a communist?
RONNIE KASRILS: Well, you know, this, at this particular point in time, has become something of an issue because of a book written by a British observer called Stephen Ellis. I've just been checking the book again. And I would say that there are pretty strong clues to indicate that for a short period, possibly in the late '50s into the early '60s, that Mandela was very impressed with people like Slovo and Mick Harmel and Ruth First and others. And what I had understood as a young person joining the Communist Party, becoming very close to Joe Slovo, particularly, that people like Walter Sisulu and him, as with Somora Machel or any leader in the African armed struggles, wanted to know what Marxism was about, what was there from this revolutionary theory and programs of action that they could learn. So, it's a very short period when there is, I would say, a closing of Mandela's connection, or of, rather, perhaps coming about.
Mandela, however, has denied it. And I think whateverthere are a couple of people who allege such from our movement, who say that, "Well, he was in the Communist Party." There's no documentation. He certainly became close in that period. But, for me, since Mandela has stated many times that he wasn't formally a member, I think we've got to accept that. There's no other real conclusive proof. But even if he had been, the point is that it was a brief period. Now, as someone in that Communist Party, I wouldn't make apologies. You know, Sisulu, Mandelathere were great people who joined, like Govan Mbeki and Walterand Moses Kotane. But Mandela certainly showed that he was sympathetic. He was very full of respect for those communists, who he
AMY GOODMAN: The South African Communist Party, Ronnie Kasrils
RONNIE KASRILS: famously said were the ones
AMY GOODMAN: Ronnie, the South African Communist Party last week said at his arrest in August '62, Nelson Mandela was not only a member of the then-underground South African Communist Party, but also a member of our party's Central Committee. We have to break, so just a 30-second response.
RONNIE KASRILS: Well, OK, sure thing. Sure thing.
AMY GOODMAN: We'll break, and then we'll get your response. Ronnie Kasrils, leading anti-apartheid activist, was a top military official under President Nelson Mandela, served on the African National Congress Executive Committee for 20 years, was underground for some quarter of a century. This is Democracy Now! Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman, with Juan González. We're spending the hour with Ronnie Kasrils in Johannesburg, South Africa. President Nelson Mandela lies in state in Pretoria at the Union Buildings. Thousands upon thousands are waiting hour after hour to be able to pass by his open casket. That will go on until Friday, and then the funeral, the state funeral for Nelson Mandela, is this weekend, along with his burial in Qunu, where he was born. Ronnie Kasrils, leading anti-apartheid activist, met Nelson Mandela in 1962 in the underground. Ronnie Kasrils remained in the underground for a quarter of a century, until 1989. He served on the National Executive Committee of the African National Congress for 20 years, went on to be a top military official under President Nelson Mandela, and then onto intelligence minister under President Thabo Mbeki. Juan?
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Ronnie Kasrils, yes, we hadAmy had asked you a question before the break, but we'd like toif you could answer that quickly, but wein the few minutes that we have left, we also are very interested in your assessment of what has happened in South Africa since the end of apartheid, because you have been highly critical of what the revolution did not accomplish. And you talked in an article in The Guardian earlier this year about the Faustian bargain that you believe that the ANCthat you and the other leaders of the ANC engaged in with the leaders of not only South African capital, but the world capitalists and governments who were putting pressure on you at the time of the transition to a majority rule. So, I'm wondering if you can answer briefly thethis issue of whether Nelson Mandela was a leader of the Communist Party of South Africa, but also spend most of the time talking about your assessment of the problems that still remain to be solved in South African society.
RONNIE KASRILS: Sure, sure. Well, let me just deal with Amy's point. Sure, Communist Party certainly makes that claim a week or so ago. I was in the party from 1961. I was in the leadership at a very high level in the Central Committee for many years, very close to Slovo and Mabhida and others. None of them ever made that claim or statement that he had been a member, other than that he had been close and that there had been some educational lessons in Marxism. Now, maybe he had been. It's possible. But there's no documents to actually prove that conclusively. So, for meand it's not a question of wanting to cover up or be embarrassed whatsoever; it's that Mandela never acknowledged it. And because there's no real conclusive proof, I think it's got to rest, in a sense, there, because it doesn't really do very much.
The fact is that if Mandela had a Marxist orientation, which he certainly did, I would say, for some time, that was dispelled when he emerges from prison 30 years or so later, where he immediately, in a majorhis first address to our people, he commits himself to the socialist-inclined Freedom Charter and the clause, that is quite emphatic, although it doesn't use the word "nationalization," that says that what we committed to is the control of the hearts of the economy, the mines, the banks, the monopoly industry, and it's inconceivable that that will change. Right.
Two years later, he shows a totally different view on the economy by going to Davos, 1992, July, very impressed, clearly, as he was in South Africa, by the voice of monopoly capital. I'm not saying he bows down to it, but he is certainly impressed in terms of what they're able to do, and comes back from Davos and says that for growth of the economy, we've got to look to the private sector. And he says that it's clear that if we go for radical, socialist approachhe uses the term "nationalization"we're not going to get the foreign investment from the capitalist world that we need to make the country run and to overcome our poverty. So it's a total change.
And this is where I say our Faustian pact or bargain stems from. It stems not just from Mandela, who is making this announcement and is following this through, but Joe Slovo, Ronnie Kasrils, the left wing of the ANC, which was predominant, our whole Communist Party. There's no real debate or argument about this. Mandela really is the icon, which he shouldn't have been, for his fellow revolutionaries. He is a leader amongst other leaders. He's always about a collective. But Mandela is very firm on a course of approach once he's made up his mind. And I note that people like Joe and others actually go along with him, now the reason being that the political kingdom is coming close, and of course this is a very big issue. We could have had a civil war at the time. There could have been enormous bloodshed. There was tremendous threats from the third force, the police, the soldiers, operating undercover and with all sorts of right-wing elements from the Afrikaner extremists. And we were very concerned. Would we be able to move through that situation smoothly and get to a democratic election and form a government based on the people's will? Now, that's an enormous attraction. And that's where Mandela's greatness shows. But I would say, at the same time, we push the economic issues onto that back burner, and they successively become distant, so that nationalization, command of the hearts of the economy, this becomes a no-no. And once that sets in, and you get the gates open for a nouveau comprador bourgeoisie to come to the fore, junior partners of big capital and the corporates and the international connections, then we embrace the neoliberal economy of the world today, with all its corruption, with its cronyism, as it's [inaudible], its patronage.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Ronnie Kasrils, we just have about 30 seconds left.
RONNIE KASRILS: And youin theand then you're in the clutches of what we're all in the clutches of, the 1 percent, the corporate world that runs the economy of this planet of ours and is doing so much harm to it and begins to undermine the political sovereignty and independence of nations. That's the point we're at. That's why we're facing such scandals and corruption with our political elites.
AMY GOODMAN: Ronnie Kasrils, we have to leave it there. We thank you for being with us
RONNIE KASRILS: That's the Faustian pact.

[Magda Hassan]

Behind a paywall so posted with out verifying but here is a taste. I'd also say the release of these documents is to kybosh the association of Mandela with the Palestinian cause. To sully his image amongst those who support their cause.

Exclusive || Mandela received weapons training from Mossad agents in Ethiopia

Top-secret archive document also reveals that Mandela was 'familiar with the problems of Jewry and of Israel' and that Israeli operatives tried to 'make him a Zionist.'

By Ofer Aderet and David Fachler | 01:00 20.12.13 | 0




Nelson Mandela, the former South African leader who died earlier this month, was trained in weaponry and sabotage by Mossad operatives in 1962, a few months before he was arrested in South Africa. During his training, Mandela expressed interest in the methods of the

http://www.haaretz.com/news/features/.premium-1.564412

[Peter Lemkin]

Behind a paywall so posted with out verifying but here is a taste. I'd also say the release of these documents is to kybosh the association of Mandela with the Palestinian cause. To sully his image amongst those who support their cause.

Exclusive || Mandela received weapons training from Mossad agents in Ethiopia

Top-secret archive document also reveals that Mandela was 'familiar with the problems of Jewry and of Israel' and that Israeli operatives tried to 'make him a Zionist.'

By Ofer Aderet and David Fachler | 01:00 20.12.13 | 0




Nelson Mandela, the former South African leader who died earlier this month, was trained in weaponry and sabotage by Mossad operatives in 1962, a few months before he was arrested in South Africa. During his training, Mandela expressed interest in the methods of the

http://www.haaretz.com/news/features/.premium-1.564412

I won't pay to read that disinformation. I'm not even aware he was ever in Israel. Israel was just about South Africa's biggest supporter during Apartheid [and helped, among other things, to build their nuclear and biological warfare programs]. I, therefore, find it difficult to believe they'd train him, although I could see their trying to 'turn him' - but have never heard of that either - and doubt they did or could have if they even ever contacted him.

[Magda Hassan]

I won't pay to read that disinformation. I'm not even aware he was ever in Israel. Israel was just about South Africa's biggest supporter during Apartheid [and helped, among other things, to build their nuclear and biological warfare programs]. I, therefore, find it difficult to believe they'd train him, although I could see their trying to 'turn him' - but have never heard of that either - and doubt they did or could have if they even ever contacted him.

No, I wont pay either but if I can find a full copy on the net I'll post it. It doesn't say he was in Israel but trained in Ethiopia by Mossad. Yeah, both pariah states and both helped each other. And there is the nuclear thing too.

[Magda Hassan]

Found it in the Anglophone French paper.

Mandela 'trained in sabotage by Mossad'

Text by HAARETZ
Latest update : 2013-12-20

The late South African leader Nelson Mandela was trained in sabotage by Mossad operatives in 1962, a few months before he was arrested in South Africa, according to a top secret archive document. Haaretz's Ofer Aderet and David Fachler report.

During his training, Mandela expressed interest in the methods of the Haganah pre-state underground and was viewed by the Mossad as leaning toward communism.
These revelations are from a document in the Israel State Archives labeled "Top Secret." The existence of the document is revealed here for the first time.
It also emerges that the Mossad operatives attempted to encourage Zionist sympathies in Mandela.
Mandela, the father of the new South Africa and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, led the struggle against apartheid in his country from the 1950s. He was arrested, tried and released a number of times before going underground in the early 1960s. In January 1962, he secretly and illegally fled South Africa and visited various African countries, including Ethiopia, Algeria, Egypt and Ghana.
His goal was to meet with the leaders of African countries and garner financial and military support for the armed wing of the underground African National Congress.
A letter sent from the Mossad to the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem reveals that Mandela underwent military training by Mossad operatives in Ethiopia during this period. These operatives were unaware of Mandela's true identity. The letter, classified top secret, was dated October 11, 1962 about two months after Mandela was arrested in South Africa, shortly after his return to the country.
The Mossad sent the letter to three recipients: the head of the Africa Desk at the Foreign Ministry, Netanel Lorch, who went on to become the third Knesset secretary; Maj. Gen. Aharon Remez, head of the ministry's department of international cooperation and the first Israel Air Force commander; and Shmuel Dibon, Israel's ambassador to Ethiopia between 1962 and 1966 and former head of the Middle East desk at the Ministry.
The subject line of the letter was "the Black Pimpernel," in English, the term the South African media was already using for Mandela. It was based on the Scarlet Pimpernel, the nom de guerre of the hero of Baroness Emma Orczy's early 20th century novel, who saved French noblemen from the guillotine during the French Revolution.
"As you may recall, three months ago we discussed the case of a trainee who arrived at the [Israeli] embassy in Ethiopia by the name of David Mobsari who came from Rhodesia," the letter said. "The aforementioned received training from the Ethiopians [Israeli embassy staff, almost certainly Mossad agents] in judo, sabotage and weaponry." The phrase "the Ethiopians" was apparently a code name for Mossad operatives working in Ethiopia.
The letter also noted that the subject in question "showed an interest in the methods of the Haganah and other Israeli underground movements. "It added that "he greeted our men with Shalom', was familiar with the problems of Jewry and of Israel, and gave the impression of being an intellectual. The staff tried to make him into a Zionist," the Mossad operative wrote.
"In conversations with him, he expressed socialist worldviews and at times created the impression that he leaned toward communism," the letter continued, noting that the man who called himself David Mobsari was the same man who had recently been arrested in South Africa.
"It now emerges from photographs that have been published in the press about the arrest in South Africa of the Black Pimpernel' that the trainee from Rhodesia used an alias, and the two men are one and the same."
A handwritten annotation on the letter refers to another letter sent about two weeks later, on October 24, 1962. The annotation noted that the "Black Pimpernel" was Nelson Mandela, followed by a short review that quoted from an article about Mandela in Haaretz.
This letter was kept for decades in the Israel State Archives and was never revealed to the public. It was discovered there a few years ago by David Fachler, 43, a resident of Alon Shvut, who was researching documents about South Africa for a Masters thesis on relations between South Africa and Israel at the Hebrew University's Institute for Contemporary Jewry.
Born in Israel, Fachler grew up and received his Masters of Law degree in South Africa. "If the fact that Israel helped Mandela had been discovered in South Africa, it could have endangered the Jewish community there," Fachler told Haaretz.
By Ofer Aderet and David Fachler, Haaretz.

http://www.france24.com/en/20131220-nels...d-haaretz/

[David Guyatt]

This story is also in today's Guardian newspaper

[Magda Hassan]

Incriminating Documents
2013/12/09

PRETORIA/BERLIN
(Own report) - Federal German authorities provided the apartheid regime of South Africa incriminating documents for a political trial against Nelson Mandela and others. This has become known through research of Bonn's South Africa policy. According to this information, West German authorities provided documents originating in the proceedings to ban the KPD to a South African diplomat and offered the support of Germany's domestic intelligence service. This was to help prepare a trial aimed at neutralizing the political resistance to the racist regime in Pretoria. Nelson Mandela, who died last week, and is now being praised by Berlin, was also affected. On the one hand, Bonn's objective was to help apartheid to remain in power, because it was considered a reliable pro-western partner, and on the other, to maintain special West German influence, which has also provided German companies lucrative business. In fact, German companies remained among the apartheid regime's most loyal supporters - to the end. During Mandela's incarceration, companies in West Germany supplied South Africa's military and police with helicopters to carry out surveillance of protests. They were equipped with devices to identify activists, many of whom were from Mandela's political entourage.


A Hitler Fan
German support for South Africa's racists extends long before the beginning of the apartheid regime. It became particularly effective beginning in 1933. "German-South African relations" had "developed during the 'Third Reich' advantageously," according to research of the German South Africa policy. Back then "under the protection of the South African Justice and Defense Minister Oswald Pirow, whose forefathers were German and who, himself, was a Hitler fan," not only "the bilateral trade" flourished, but it triggered "a brisk exchange" with "Afrikaans students and professors." "Afrikaans anti-Semites" attempted to "assess the applicability" of Nazi anti-Semitic laws "on South Africa's Jewish population." German South Africa "experts" had, for their part, considered "Premier Hertzog's strict policy of racial segregation to be a genuine South African attempt to solve the race problem of the country."[1] Many agreed in circles of German trade to Africa. They were seeing "a surging colored flood tide rising ever higher" in South Africa. To "protect western culture," the "close cooperation of the white peoples" was essential, according, for example, to the periodical of the Africa Association.[2]

German-Afrikaans Special Relationship
According to the study mentioned above, the "German-Afrikaans Special Relationship" which had developed since the 1930s, again became "noticeable" since the revival of the West German - South African relations through the establishment of the West German General Consulate in Cape Town in January 1951. The 1948 electoral victory of the South African regime, which consolidated apartheid "provided the best prerequisites" for this revival. Not least among the reasons, is the fact that during the first phase of the apartheid regime, leading South African politicians had either "received some of their academic training in Germany, or from German missionaries." Bonn and Pretoria were engaged in negotiations for a cultural agreement, already in 1955, "which from the point of view of Germany, should, above all, benefit South Africa's large German minority." However, Bonn found itself forced to postpone finalization of the treaty for a couple of years - until the end of 1962 [3] - "because of the international isolation of South Africa due to its apartheid policy."

No Criticism
At times, due to the growing political moral pressures, certain tactical concessions placed limits on Bonn's basic willingness to cooperate with the apartheid regime. For example the West German government refused to allow South Africa's Foreign Minister to visit, during his planned European tour in the immediate aftermath of the Sharpeville Massacre in March 1960. At the same time trade was booming. In 1957, the Federal Republic of Germany rose to become the third most important supplier of South Africa and thereby that regime's most important economic supporter. According to foreign ministry records from May 31, 1961, referring to measures, such as the de facto disinvitation of the South African Foreign Minister in the Spring of 1960, any declaration on the part of Bonn, that could be interpreted as showing understanding for "South Africa's standpoint on race, could do considerable harm to our image in the colored world and, above all, be exploited at our expense by Pankow and the Soviets." Nevertheless the fact remains: "we intend, also in the future, with consideration for the good relations and the large German minority in South Africa, to avoid expressing public criticism of South Africa's domestic relations."[4]

Support from Bonn
Bonn continued its support of Pretoria on a working level - for example, during the trial of 156 members of the opposition for high treason in late 1956, which the Apartheid authorities used to weaken the growing resistance. Nelson Mandela was one of the defendants. According to the above mentioned study, "the prosecution sought Bonn's assistance in this important trial," and received it without delay. West German authorities passed on to the South African Chargé d'Affaires - with insufficient examination - "several documents (warrants, indictments and verdicts) of the proceedings to ban the KPD." The West German Attorney General's Office also indicated that the Federal Office of the Protection of the Constitution could meet the "South African request concerning documents about the KPD's 'front organizations'." The author of the analysis suspects, these documents had been "asked for during a phase of the trial, where the prosecution was about to run out of arguments against the defendants." In any case, the prosecution evidently was of the opinion that "the study of the KPD trial (...) also provided valuable insights," the West German trial observer in Pretoria, Harald Bielfeld, reported to Bonn in October 1958. Bielfeld had already previously been active in South Africa - as a diplomat of the German Reich.[5]

The Most Important Direct Financier
Over the years, West Germany's relations to South Africa have remained close - even while other countries had begun to take a distance to the Apartheid regime. For example, when more than 100 US enterprises withdrew from South Africa in mid 1987, German companies expanded their trade and investments. West Germany also approved export credit guarantees for German deliveries, as the publicist Birgit Morgenrath, co-author of a book on West German business relations with South Africa [6] recalled years ago. West German companies contributed also to "South Africa becoming a nuclear power," wrote Morgenrath: These companies - particularly Siemens - are accused of having supplied South Africa with the separation nozzle process developed in West Germany for uranium enrichment for nuclear bombs." And West German banks made extensive loans to the Apartheid regime. As Morgenrath wrote, the Federal Republic of Germany had finally become the "world's most important direct financier of Apartheid."[7]

Unimogs with Rocket Launchers
West German business with South Africa included arms deliveries - even after the 1977 official proclamation of the UN arms embargo. While Nelson Mandela and countless other resistance fighters were being held in prison by the Apartheid regime, the Düsseldorf-based Rheinmetall Group delivered a complete ammunition plant to that country. Rheinmetall pretended to supply a - non-existent - company in Paraguay. After arriving in South America, the components "were reloaded onto a ship bound for Durban, South Africa under the surveillance of Rheinmetall managers," the Journalist Gottfried Wellmer explained in his research.[8] Wellmer documented numerous other arms deals, including the delivery of at least 2,500 Daimler Unimogs for the South African Army (from 1978 on i.e. during the proclaimed UN embargo). These Unimogs could also be armed with "multiple rocket launchers." Messerschmidt-Bölkow-Blohm supplied "the South African police - illegally - with five helicopters" Wellmer writes, destined to "carry out surveillance of mass demonstrations" of South African anti-Apartheid opponents "and to identify leading activists."

Courage and Strength
Despite his decades long imprisonment by the Apartheid regime, Nelson Mandela found the "courage and Strength" to "lead his country into democracy without violence," according to President Joachim Gauck.[9] But of course Gauck doesn't mention the Federal Republic of Germany's support of Apartheid which helped the regime to keep Mandela in prison while waiting 27 years, with "strength and courage," for his release.

[1] Albrecht Hagemann: Bonn und die Apartheid in Südafrika, in: Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Jahrgang 43 (1995), 679-706
[2] zitiert nach: Heiko Möhle (Hg.): Branntwein, Bibeln und Bananen. Der deutsche Kolonialismus in Afrika - eine Spurensuche, 4. Auflage, Hamburg 2011
[3], [4], [5] Albrecht Hagemann: Bonn und die Apartheid in Südafrika, in: Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Jahrgang 43 (1995), 679-706
[6] Birgit Morgenrath, Gottfried Wellmer: Deutsches Kapital am Kap. Kollaboration mit dem Apartheidregime, Hamburg 2003. S. also Deutsches Kapital am Kap
[7] Birgit Morgenrath: Apartheid unter gutem Stern - Deutsche Konzerne wegen Menschenrechtsverletzungen angeklagt; labournet.de
[8] Gottfried Wellmer: Anmerkungen zur Sammelklage von Apartheidsopfern in den USA, o.O., o.J.
[9] Merkel: "Mandelas Erbe bleibt eine Inspiration"; http://www.dw.de 06.12.2013
http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/en/fulltext/58704

[Peter Lemkin]

Incriminating Documents
2013/12/09

PRETORIA/BERLIN
(Own report) - Federal German authorities provided the apartheid regime of South Africa incriminating documents for a political trial against Nelson Mandela and others. This has become known through research of Bonn's South Africa policy. According to this information, West German authorities provided documents originating in the proceedings to ban the KPD to a South African diplomat and offered the support of Germany's domestic intelligence service. This was to help prepare a trial aimed at neutralizing the political resistance to the racist regime in Pretoria. Nelson Mandela, who died last week, and is now being praised by Berlin, was also affected. On the one hand, Bonn's objective was to help apartheid to remain in power, because it was considered a reliable pro-western partner, and on the other, to maintain special West German influence, which has also provided German companies lucrative business. In fact, German companies remained among the apartheid regime's most loyal supporters - to the end. During Mandela's incarceration, companies in West Germany supplied South Africa's military and police with helicopters to carry out surveillance of protests. They were equipped with devices to identify activists, many of whom were from Mandela's political entourage.


A Hitler Fan
German support for South Africa's racists extends long before the beginning of the apartheid regime. It became particularly effective beginning in 1933. "German-South African relations" had "developed during the 'Third Reich' advantageously," according to research of the German South Africa policy. Back then "under the protection of the South African Justice and Defense Minister Oswald Pirow, whose forefathers were German and who, himself, was a Hitler fan," not only "the bilateral trade" flourished, but it triggered "a brisk exchange" with "Afrikaans students and professors." "Afrikaans anti-Semites" attempted to "assess the applicability" of Nazi anti-Semitic laws "on South Africa's Jewish population." German South Africa "experts" had, for their part, considered "Premier Hertzog's strict policy of racial segregation to be a genuine South African attempt to solve the race problem of the country."[1] Many agreed in circles of German trade to Africa. They were seeing "a surging colored flood tide rising ever higher" in South Africa. To "protect western culture," the "close cooperation of the white peoples" was essential, according, for example, to the periodical of the Africa Association.[2]

German-Afrikaans Special Relationship
According to the study mentioned above, the "German-Afrikaans Special Relationship" which had developed since the 1930s, again became "noticeable" since the revival of the West German - South African relations through the establishment of the West German General Consulate in Cape Town in January 1951. The 1948 electoral victory of the South African regime, which consolidated apartheid "provided the best prerequisites" for this revival. Not least among the reasons, is the fact that during the first phase of the apartheid regime, leading South African politicians had either "received some of their academic training in Germany, or from German missionaries." Bonn and Pretoria were engaged in negotiations for a cultural agreement, already in 1955, "which from the point of view of Germany, should, above all, benefit South Africa's large German minority." However, Bonn found itself forced to postpone finalization of the treaty for a couple of years - until the end of 1962 [3] - "because of the international isolation of South Africa due to its apartheid policy."

No Criticism
At times, due to the growing political moral pressures, certain tactical concessions placed limits on Bonn's basic willingness to cooperate with the apartheid regime. For example the West German government refused to allow South Africa's Foreign Minister to visit, during his planned European tour in the immediate aftermath of the Sharpeville Massacre in March 1960. At the same time trade was booming. In 1957, the Federal Republic of Germany rose to become the third most important supplier of South Africa and thereby that regime's most important economic supporter. According to foreign ministry records from May 31, 1961, referring to measures, such as the de facto disinvitation of the South African Foreign Minister in the Spring of 1960, any declaration on the part of Bonn, that could be interpreted as showing understanding for "South Africa's standpoint on race, could do considerable harm to our image in the colored world and, above all, be exploited at our expense by Pankow and the Soviets." Nevertheless the fact remains: "we intend, also in the future, with consideration for the good relations and the large German minority in South Africa, to avoid expressing public criticism of South Africa's domestic relations."[4]

Support from Bonn
Bonn continued its support of Pretoria on a working level - for example, during the trial of 156 members of the opposition for high treason in late 1956, which the Apartheid authorities used to weaken the growing resistance. Nelson Mandela was one of the defendants. According to the above mentioned study, "the prosecution sought Bonn's assistance in this important trial," and received it without delay. West German authorities passed on to the South African Chargé d'Affaires - with insufficient examination - "several documents (warrants, indictments and verdicts) of the proceedings to ban the KPD." The West German Attorney General's Office also indicated that the Federal Office of the Protection of the Constitution could meet the "South African request concerning documents about the KPD's 'front organizations'." The author of the analysis suspects, these documents had been "asked for during a phase of the trial, where the prosecution was about to run out of arguments against the defendants." In any case, the prosecution evidently was of the opinion that "the study of the KPD trial (...) also provided valuable insights," the West German trial observer in Pretoria, Harald Bielfeld, reported to Bonn in October 1958. Bielfeld had already previously been active in South Africa - as a diplomat of the German Reich.[5]

The Most Important Direct Financier
Over the years, West Germany's relations to South Africa have remained close - even while other countries had begun to take a distance to the Apartheid regime. For example, when more than 100 US enterprises withdrew from South Africa in mid 1987, German companies expanded their trade and investments. West Germany also approved export credit guarantees for German deliveries, as the publicist Birgit Morgenrath, co-author of a book on West German business relations with South Africa [6] recalled years ago. West German companies contributed also to "South Africa becoming a nuclear power," wrote Morgenrath: These companies - particularly Siemens - are accused of having supplied South Africa with the separation nozzle process developed in West Germany for uranium enrichment for nuclear bombs." And West German banks made extensive loans to the Apartheid regime. As Morgenrath wrote, the Federal Republic of Germany had finally become the "world's most important direct financier of Apartheid."[7]

Unimogs with Rocket Launchers
West German business with South Africa included arms deliveries - even after the 1977 official proclamation of the UN arms embargo. While Nelson Mandela and countless other resistance fighters were being held in prison by the Apartheid regime, the Düsseldorf-based Rheinmetall Group delivered a complete ammunition plant to that country. Rheinmetall pretended to supply a - non-existent - company in Paraguay. After arriving in South America, the components "were reloaded onto a ship bound for Durban, South Africa under the surveillance of Rheinmetall managers," the Journalist Gottfried Wellmer explained in his research.[8] Wellmer documented numerous other arms deals, including the delivery of at least 2,500 Daimler Unimogs for the South African Army (from 1978 on i.e. during the proclaimed UN embargo). These Unimogs could also be armed with "multiple rocket launchers." Messerschmidt-Bölkow-Blohm supplied "the South African police - illegally - with five helicopters" Wellmer writes, destined to "carry out surveillance of mass demonstrations" of South African anti-Apartheid opponents "and to identify leading activists."

Courage and Strength
Despite his decades long imprisonment by the Apartheid regime, Nelson Mandela found the "courage and Strength" to "lead his country into democracy without violence," according to President Joachim Gauck.[9] But of course Gauck doesn't mention the Federal Republic of Germany's support of Apartheid which helped the regime to keep Mandela in prison while waiting 27 years, with "strength and courage," for his release.

[1] Albrecht Hagemann: Bonn und die Apartheid in Südafrika, in: Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Jahrgang 43 (1995), 679-706
[2] zitiert nach: Heiko Möhle (Hg.): Branntwein, Bibeln und Bananen. Der deutsche Kolonialismus in Afrika - eine Spurensuche, 4. Auflage, Hamburg 2011
[3], [4], [5] Albrecht Hagemann: Bonn und die Apartheid in Südafrika, in: Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Jahrgang 43 (1995), 679-706
[6] Birgit Morgenrath, Gottfried Wellmer: Deutsches Kapital am Kap. Kollaboration mit dem Apartheidregime, Hamburg 2003. S. also Deutsches Kapital am Kap
[7] Birgit Morgenrath: Apartheid unter gutem Stern - Deutsche Konzerne wegen Menschenrechtsverletzungen angeklagt; labournet.de
[8] Gottfried Wellmer: Anmerkungen zur Sammelklage von Apartheidsopfern in den USA, o.O., o.J.
[9] Merkel: "Mandelas Erbe bleibt eine Inspiration"; www.dw.de 06.12.2013
http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/en/fulltext/58704

Well, that's especially disgusting and upsetting [given Germany's past!]...but doesn't surprise and explains a few things. Germany used to have as part of its African colonies, Namibia, which is adjacent to South Africa and was militarily dominated by the Apartheid government during most of their rule - probably with a little help and wink and nod from the Germans.::