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Right in Clinton's face - Mandela stands up for Cuba
Workers World ^ | April 9, 1998 | Deirdre Griswold

Posted on 05/07/2003 9:17:48 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife

Bill Clinton's trip to Africa was supposed to be a whirlwind triumph. The president of the world's only superpower swept through country after country with an entourage of 1,000 people in tow.

The peoples of Africa were supposed to be grateful that the rich and powerful United States was taking any interest in them.

For any country, even the richest, it is very difficult to say what they really think about the United States, especially during a visit by the U.S. head of state.

But South African President Nelson Mandela showed the political courage for which he is famous March 27. In a joint news conference with Clinton in Cape Town, Mandela made a point of praising Cuba, Libya and Iran-all countries on Washington's hit list.

"Not only did they support us in rhetoric, they gave us the resources for us to conduct the struggle and win," Mandela said pointedly.

Two days later, Mandela announced to CNN that he would be visiting Iran soon, "and I do not hide those things. Libya, Cuba, Iran are my friends," said Mandela. He added that they supported the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa "when the United States, as other Western powers, at the time of the struggle were really helping our enemy."

Mandela then explained why he opposed the Growth and Opportunity Bill. Now before the U.S. Senate, the bill ties investment in Africa to "democracy" and adherence to International Monetary Fund demands.

Not 'neglect' but bloody intervention

Did Clinton really think he could put one over on Nelson Mandela?

Clinton's tour was hyped as showing that the U.S. government will no longer "neglect" the rich continent of Africa but will foster investment and development there.

Mandela knows just how phony that claim is.

Take the U.S. "neglect" of South Africa during apartheid. Back on July 26, 1979, arms expert Michael Klare wrote in The Nation that "Western sources ranging from the British Broadcasting Corporation to the Washington Post have confirmed that millions of dollars' worth of U.S. arms have reached South African forces via illegal channels."

Some deliveries involved whole shiploads of 155-mm artillery shells. "Pretoria has acquired a wide range of U.S. transport, communications, and surveillance equipment, greatly enhancing its capacity for long-range commando raids against neighboring Black states," wrote Klare.

In fact, U.S. imperialism has never "neglected" Africa. The government that is today preaching "democracy" to Africans has put in power some of the most virulently anti-democratic forces there. And much of the misery in Africa today comes from U.S. intervention.

U.S. corporations have extracted billions of dollars from the Congo, Zambia, Ghana and other countries rich in minerals and agricultural resources, while these countries fell into debt. Then U.S. banks moved in and did very nicely collecting interest.

Nor was the U.S. government somehow unaware of what was going on. The secretive state structures that service the billionaire class-especially the Central Intelligence Agency-have been very interested in Africa.

Their intervention grew in the late 1950s-the period when overt colonialism was ending and U.S. money makers saw the chance to move in to what had been European strongholds.

CIA vs. liberation movements

The main objective of CIA subversion was to prevent the rising liberation movements from setting up stable governments. These new and very popular regimes hoped to at last put Africa's great natural resources at the service of the people.

In this period, the USSR and countries in Eastern Europe, especially the German Democratic Republic, offered free advanced training to Africans who had been denied an education under colonial rule. An entire university-named after Patrice Lumumba-was built in Moscow for these foreign students. These students studied geology, engineering, medicine, agronomy and many other specialties desperately needed in their countries.

Using the excuse of the Cold War because many African regimes had turned to the socialist bloc for aid, the agents of the U.S. super-rich got political support from Congress for their dirty work.

Why doesn't U.S. give up genocide?

Clinton's public-relations people arranged a photo opportunity showing him getting African heads of state to sign an anti-genocide document. But what about U.S.-sponsored genocide?

Millions of people have died because of U.S. intervention in Africa-not even counting the United States role in the world's worst genocide ever, the slave trade.

The CIA was behind the 1960 assassination of Patrice Lumumba-the Congo's first president. That set off decades of bloody struggle over the riches of this key central African nation-a struggle that continues to this day. The CIA picked Gen. Mobutu to rule what became Zaire. At one point, it even hired Cuban exile pilots to bomb the progressive forces in the Congo.

Africa expert Rene Lemarchand wrote that "whatever efforts and resources were 'spent' on Mobutu turned out to be a highly productive investment from the standpoint of U.S. corporate interests."

The CIA deposed the immensely popular Marxist president of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah. Seymour Hersh broke the story in the New York Times on May 9, 1978: "The Central Intelligence Agency advised and supported a group of dissident army officers who overthrew the regime of President Nkrumah of Ghana in February 1966, first-hand intelligence sources said yesterday."

Hersh cited CIA officer John Stockwell, who explained how the agency made sure not to leave a paper trail. "Inside CIA headquarters the Accra station was given full, if unofficial, credit for the coup. None of this was adequately reflected in the Agency's written records," said Stockwell.

Ghana was Clinton's first stop on his current trip.

Stockwell's book "In Search of Enemies" tells how the CIA promoted opposition armies in Angola after that country's liberation from Portugal. That covert military intervention, with its liberal use of land mines, caused millions of casualties. So did the war in Mozambique, another liberated Portuguese colony tortured by a mercenary army that had at least tacit U.S. support.

The Clinton administration is relying on a subservient press here to wipe away all memory of this criminal history and portray the U.S. government's interest in Africa in the most altruistic light.

But Nelson Mandela's response to Clinton reflects what Africans really think about these Johnny-come-lately "benefactors."


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Cuba; Culture/Society; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: communism; cuba; iran; libya; mandela
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1 posted on 05/07/2003 9:17:49 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
Hah, what tripe. Thank Goodness Mandela was able to transform the hellhole of South Africa - then a relatively affluent and stable apartheid state - into the paradise it is now - a violent corrupt joke.

By Communists, for Communists.

2 posted on 05/07/2003 9:23:20 AM PDT by Dr.Deth
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To: Dr.Deth
Yeah, he sure showed us. BTW where is Mandela's adoring Hollywood crowd? Oh, that's right, they're busy singing Castro's praises these days.
3 posted on 05/07/2003 9:27:09 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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Comment #4 Removed by Moderator

To: Cincinatus' Wife
The Workers' World is on your reading list? And you're five years behind...

Nonetheless, I doubt Mandela said anything that Clinton himself didn't believe -- but didn't dare say.

But South African President Nelson Mandela showed the political courage for which he is famous March 27. In a joint news conference with Clinton in Cape Town, Mandela made a point of praising Cuba, Libya and Iran-all countries on Washington's hit list.

Mandela may have said it. But Clinton may well have been his ghostwriter...

5 posted on 05/07/2003 9:42:52 AM PDT by okie01 (The Mainstream Media: IGNORANCE ON PARADE.)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
Clintoon, of course, never had the grace to be embarrassed over Mandela's communistic and dictatorial leanings. Clintoon ignores the fact that he proved is "behind the eight ball" again. And, Mandela just proved what the rest of the world knew. Give another few years and South Africa will be just another 3rd world country feeding at the trough of the UN, if it's not all ready.
6 posted on 05/07/2003 9:45:08 AM PDT by lilylangtree
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To: marujo
I was nearly flunked in a college class because a wrote a paper that South Africa and black South Africans would be worse off once apartied ended.

I'm surprised you weren't run out on a rail.

7 posted on 05/07/2003 9:46:22 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: okie01
A nice reminder of things.
8 posted on 05/07/2003 9:47:19 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: lilylangtree
It's well on its way and they're dragging any promise for the continent down with them.
9 posted on 05/07/2003 9:48:57 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Dr.Deth
A number of years ago, Michael Palin (of Monty Python fame) did a series called "Pole to Pole". He travelled from the North Pole to the South Pole over the course of several months. While travelling across Africa, he literally went from Hellhole to Hellhole to Hellhole UNTIL he got to the gates of South Africa. The difference between whatever country he was in with SA was so striking they couldn't ignore it.

Of course, he had to visit a typical SA family in their terrible little frame home and talk about the terrors of aparthied (all the while trying to ignore the horrors of the rest of Africa).

It actually was one of the best bits of (unintentional) political satire I've ever seen.
10 posted on 05/07/2003 9:59:59 AM PDT by SWake ("Life ... is SO uncertain" Lyle Lovett)
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To: lilylangtree
And of course the article ignores the fact that Patrice Lumumba was a Communist, a racist, and a drug addict -- that Lumumba was not President of the Congo at all, but the Prime Minister -- that he was no longer in office when he died, having been dismissed -- that he instituted a reign of terror during his time in office, and illegally continued to exercise power following his dismissal.

And of course Nelson Mandela's racist, terroristic background goes unmentioned, instead accompanied by grandiloquent praise of his "political courage" (Feliks Dzherzhinskiy was also "politically courageous"). The fact that that murderer, who guided the Union of South Africa into accelerate collapse, praised Iran and Cuba tells a great deal about the man.

A great deal, of course, that is cheerfully ignored by the Leftist media.
11 posted on 05/07/2003 10:22:23 AM PDT by Citizen of the United States (Honi soit qui mal y pense)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
Let's make a commercial. It's time to go negative now. The commercial would show this, and replay, and replay it some more. It would be directed against all Socialist Democrat Soviet candidates. It's time to call the Left what they really are and to tell it like it is to the American people. "See this, here is the crowd that our `Democrats' keep company with!"
12 posted on 05/07/2003 10:23:17 AM PDT by GOP_1900AD (Un-PC even to "Conservatives!" - Right makes right)
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To: SWake
And how did he travel across most of Africa?
13 posted on 05/07/2003 10:30:18 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Citizen of the United States
Thank you for filling in the omissions. The Left never gives the true picture.
14 posted on 05/07/2003 10:31:33 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: belmont_mark
"See this, here is the crowd that our `Democrats' keep company with!"

BUMP!

15 posted on 05/07/2003 10:32:11 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
Mandela made a point of praising Cuba, Libya and Iran-all countries on Washington's hit list.

But not on EX President Sinkmeister's hit list.

16 posted on 05/07/2003 11:17:05 AM PDT by El Gato
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To: El Gato
Please Nelson, hit me again.
17 posted on 05/07/2003 11:37:38 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
It's coming. I can see it now - the final showdown between the Lberty-loving people of the world versus the communist's useful idiots.

The fall of the Soviets was only a pause, and while we've been napping, the communists have been regrouping.

They do so now at their own extreme peril, though. The reason being the fact that we would finally use our vast nuclear arsenal (with relative impunity, now that the Sovs are gone) for the purpose that it was constructed - the utter annihilation of the communist menace!

18 posted on 05/07/2003 12:35:31 PM PDT by FierceDraka ("I am not a number - I am a FREE MAN!")
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
It really was an interesting series. As I remember, his primary mode of travel in Africa was train, bus, and boat (across Lake Victoria).
19 posted on 05/07/2003 12:41:42 PM PDT by SWake ("Life ... is SO uncertain" Lyle Lovett)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
The approach that the liberal blacks have taken in South Africa is that almost anything the white government did was wrong because it was under apartheid. However, this has meant undoing most of South Africa's fundamental laws of decency and appropriate standards, for instance, the death penalty, laws against homosexuality (SA's was the first Constitution in the world to legally protect homos).

That's just not the way things work. They need to learn from the past, but not by viewing everything from the past as repressive and wrong.
20 posted on 05/07/2003 2:26:38 PM PDT by No Dems 2004
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