US student sues the CIA for records regarding the arrest of Nelson Mandela.

Theories of CIA involvement in South Africa have been described in various ATS threads on the country, but it seems that there's a renewed drive for a full historical disclosure and transparency beyond speculation and conspiracy theory.
Interestingly (or perhaps predictably), this drive does not come from the ANC or the Mandela family, but from an American graduate student.

Ryan Shapiro has now sued the CIA for information on their role in the arrest of Nelson Mandela in 1962.
This could also reveal the information the CIA shared with the apartheid state on political activists.

The recent passing of former President Mandela was met with much grief, but there were also voices that pointed out that he left a mixed legacy, and that one person's "freedom fighter" is another person's "terrorist".

The history goes back to the Cold War, which is done and dusted. So why not disclose all the documents?

Why was the ANC only taken off the US terrorist list in 2008?

Maybe it was just a lazy little oversight by some pencil pushers?

I'd think that the real concern is that if there was proven internal CIA meddling in SA it probably didn't stop in 1994.
There were even rumors that the CIA was ultimately behind the hit on Chris Hani.
They may have brought certain factions of the ANC to power, and any hint of that would be terribly embarrassing.
It would also imply that the current leadership is essentially illegitimate.

We'll have to wait and see, but my guess is that he probably won't get anything but denials, or a few documents dealing with the Cold War context of the time.
And perhaps that's all there is to it.

www.theepochtimes.com...

An interview with Ryan Shapiro, who's suing the CIA under the Freedom of Information Act regarding their records on Nelson Mandela's arrest.

It's from a South African program, and the interviewer introduces the topic with an Afrikaans sentence or two, but the entire interview is in English.



Well, all power to him, and it should be interesting, although he seems like an extremely leftist partisan to me, while I'd think that outside manipulation affected two sides of the political spectrum in SA.
Rumor had it that former foreign affairs minister Pik Botha received frequent calls from both the CIA and KGB.
What is quite certain is that the ANC and the National Party were having clandestine meetings while the rest of the country was still being brainwashed into a war mentality from both sides: "people's war" vs. "total onslaught".
The politicians worked out their indemnities and golden handshakes very nicely.

I'd also love records on what the CIA knew about the ANC war on rival black movements like Azapo or Inkatha, and why the US press didn't cover this, and also on the virtual cover-up of ANC concentration camps like Quatro and the attempted covering up of Winnie Mandela's child murder case.
Apparently here the old South African police and intelligence services were working with the ANC to clear Mrs. Mandela, even while she was presented as a public enemy to white South Africa.
www.noseweek.co.za...
Why was that?

I question the idea of a "freedom fighter" being so easily married to a woman that was known for "tire necklaces".

Winnie liked to have opponents have a truck or auto tire placed around their shoulders and upper arms, doused in gasoline or something else flammable, and then set ablaze.

If I were married to Winnie Mandela, and heard about these things, I'd have ended the marriage much sooner. But, he was in jail while she was doing this for decades. And truthfully, I cannot help but think that he'd find out about such activity on her part. So, in my opinion, he knew. Now, maybe being in jail in SA the way he was is different than here in the US. Maybe he couldn't divorce her while he was in jail.

But it took two years for him to divorce her.

I'd drop a chick who liked to use "tire necklaces" like a hot rock, first chance I had. Apparently, he didn't.

reply to post by halfoldman

Lets see how this one plays out. You know what will happen? Most like they will refuse on the grounds on "National-International Security."

And if they lose and a judge orders them to provide the documents (and here's the catch) they will provide the documents...all full pages...with huge sections blacked out.

Sure. They'll provide the docs requested. But I dont think it will specify "with no parts blacked out and complete without deletions or omissions".

Clever huh?

reply to post by zeroBelief

Winnie and Nelson were the emblematic "sinister" and "public relations" symbols of a Janus-faced ANC.

Nelson Mandela certainly knew of her activities after his release, although thuggish behavior wasn't exactly unusual in the ANC.
I could let that rest with the understanding that war is just a terrible business.
But hey, if Ryan Shapiro wants to dig further, then why not?

That may point to more embarrassments for ANC leaders (and former leaders) if CIA files are released, since it is an open secret that in exile they were involved in smuggling and self-enrichment, and MK members who questioned the lack of democracy and transparency ended up in horrific prisons or camp Quatro.
If the CIA had really wanted to bring down the ANC since the late 1970s, they could easily have done this by presenting the truth to the media.
However, that truth had to trickle out after the fact.

Fred Bridgland was a journalist who discovered Katiza Cebekhulu in a Zambian prison.
Mr. Cebekhulu was an innocent man whose only crime was that he apparently witnessed Winnie Mandela murdering a child activist.
South African newspapers described him as the the most important witness in the Winnie Mandela trial - until he suddenly went missing.
It turned out that he was kidnapped by an ANC squad who took him to Zambia, where his detention was arranged in order to silence him as a witness against Mrs. Mandela.

Rather embarrassingly, former Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda admitted in a filmed interview that Cebekhulu was imprisoned in Zambia at the personal request of Nelson Mandela!
So Mandela had an innocent man kidnapped and imprisoned to protect Winnie (I guess it's an understatement to say that the conditions weren't exactly humane).

For the whole story and more see Fred Bridgland's article on the good and bad of the Mandela legacy: www.scotsman.com...

Even if the CIA only kept files with personal observations about current and historical ANC leaders this could result in some major scandals if released.
Mr. Shapiro could be opening a can of worms with results that he never anticipated.

He can't really embarrass apartheid, or an era in which the US still had segregation in many states.
Those issues have long been condemned - it's an old hat.
So who can he actually embarrass?
Only those people who currently still claim to be noble to the masses through information control, although much of that information has also been published for anyone who digs a bit.
I'm sure there's a lot more that hasn't been told.

In fact, if the CIA refuses to release things, then it's probably to protect the ANC.
Surely one wouldn't allow the construction of a virtual saint (Mandela) over decades, only to have that undermined.