Nelson Mandela and the ANC are on the US terrorist watchlist and need waivers to enter the country

Nelson Mandela and other members of the African National Congress are on the US terrorist watchlist. ANC members who wish to travel to the USA have to get waivers from the State Department. The former South African Ambassador to the USA was flagged and delayed when she attempted to visit a dying cousin -- by the time the red-tape had been cut, her cousin was dead.

"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.
Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., chairman of the House International Relations Committee, is pushing a bill that would remove current and former ANC leaders from the watch lists. Supporters hope to get it passed before Mandela's 90th birthday July 18.
"What an indignity," Berman said. "The ANC set an important example: It successfully made the change from armed struggle to peace. We should celebrate the transformation."

Link (Thanks, grayman23!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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mastercontroller

Yeah… so….

All I gotta do is end apartheid and I might get taken off the list in like twenty years?

I’ll get on that.
minTphresh

hey zippy(#40)! everyone knows the REAL overlords are reptilian. kinda lizard-like. only taller. just so u know.
hobnob

#12 Kieran O’Neill

“Accept the fact that the police no longer provide your middle class white neighbourhood with the same, unfairly disproportionate level of protection which they did under Apartheid.”

Two nights ago, I arrested an intruder on my property. Fortunately for me I was armed…as I always am (for when stuff like this happens), and I was able to subdue him by threat of force alone.

I shouted to my wife to call the police. A visitor to my home also phoned the national emergency number (10111). Both of them spent more than 10 minutes just trying to get the persons who answered to GET THE STREETNAME RIGHT. Their huge station is 1.38 km from my house.

Meanwhile my neighbour shows up, and we bind the suspect. Niegbour’s wife phones the police station (1,380 meters away). After an unsuccessful attempt at getting help, she got into her car and DROVE THERE. On arrival, she had to first “fill in a form” before a vehicle would be dispatched to my house 1.38 km away.

The following day I phoned them to ask them what’s up. They had no recollection, no record, no knowledge of the incident.

Kieran, what do I do? I have two young daughters in my house. I live in my “middle class white neighbourhood” because I have nowhere else to go. I am a middle class white.
fightcopyright

The ANC was a terrorist organization… Apartheid was wrong, but Mandela’s original approach was to use violence against innocents at a train station by planting bombs. That’s why he was sent to prison. (He obviously shouldn’t be on the list any longer)

Violence was not what ended Apartheid, it was ended through peaceful means. But for those who think that everyone in the ANC has renounced violence, you should think again.

Most likely the next president will be Jacob Zuma, a man already under suspicion of rape and corruption. One of his famous slogans during the struggle was “one settler one bullet.”

Moral clarity requires us to recognize that the response to evil is not more evil to balance things out. We can be opposed to apartheid and equally opposed to the opportunists who are exploiting the current situation.

Mugabe is a good example of a leader fought injustice with injustice. If you can’t resist tyranny with character, what’s to prevent you from becoming another tyrant once you have the power?
folkclarinet

Why does it take putting a bill through Congress to REMOVE people from the list???

I bet you can be added without the fuss.
pandaterror

Whn frgnrs thnk bt th NC t cnjrs p th mg f hr n wht hrs, th vnqshrs f prthd. T thnk tht ths s th NC’s nly gnd s jst pln gnrnt.

The ANC is a political party with all the same sleaze and corruption you’d expect from any political party in any country. Ynks shld stp whnng bt thr gvrnmnt. Blv m th grss sn’t grnr nywhr ls, vn f y’r rld by wrld fms frdm fghtrs y stll gt ll th sm pltcl mck.
Otter

@1: “Heads are gonna roll in the DHS.”

Really? After 7+ years, you think there is any chance the Bush administration will hold anyone responsible for anything?

You have obviously missed a few episodes:
“Bin Laden determined to attack in US”
Katrina
Abu Ghraib
WMD
Attorney Generals
John Yoo
Jose Padilla
Kieran O’Neill

#17 Yeah, I guess that’s not an uncommon story. To be fair, there are plenty of similar stories in other countries. (There’s a blog on which frustrated UK police complain about their inability to respond to crime as a result of the bureaucracy they’re hampered with).

As to what you do:

1. Lodge a complaint with the SAPS. The SAPS service number is 0860 13 0860. There is also a web system which lets you send a complaint directly to the station commander, which I have had success with (for a far smaller complaint than yours). Personally, I would use the web form first, then phone the 0860 number if that fails.

2. Write to/ email/ phone politicians. South Africa is a democracy, and government is, to some extent, contactable. Even if you can influence one or two, that can make a difference up the chain.

3. Protest about and raise awareness of the issue, but keep the issue clear: The issue is that there is excessive violent and other crime, and that the government is not doing enough to prevent it. (Admittedly, the rate is falling, so maybe they are having an effect?)

As soon as you conflate crime with tinfoil hat conspiracy theories of condoned genocide, the government (and many other people) will stop taking you seriously. Also, if crime is what you truly care about (and it sounds like it is), keep it separate from the issues of corruption and crumbling infrastructure. (At least, outside of the context of the justice system.)

The people you need to convince are the South African electorate and the South African government. Calling the entire government corrupt isn’t going to get them to listen to you.

As for your personal situation, you may also want to look into sector policing as a way of getting more involved with your local police force – it may help you (and others in your area) to get a better response in future.
Kieran O’Neill

#18 As I understand it, the bombings under Mandela were strictly non-harmful. They certainly included sabotage of infrastructure, but great care was taken to ensure that people were not affected. It was only after Mandela went to jail that MK shifted towards targeting police and military and later civilians.

Also, “One settler, one bullet” was a Pan African Congress slogan, while Zuma was in the ANC. I find it strange that you assert that it was a famous Zuma slogan.

Don’t get me wrong, he certainly was a guerilla, back in the day, and his singing of “Awuleth’ umshini Wam’” (“hand me my machine gun”) at his rape exoneration does little to inspire confidence in the man who will most likely be our next president, but please try to be correct in your criticism.
Kieran O’Neill

Sorry, forgot to post the coppers blog link in #22.
http://coppersblog.blogspot.com/
Antinous

Let’s see. If participating in armed struggle for liberation is grounds to be banned, I guess it’s a good thing that George Washington died before this list went into effect. Liberation generally comes at the point of a gun. We idolize people like Gandhi because we want to think that they did everything peacefully, but the reality is that for every peacemaker, there’s an army of guerrillas creating the conditions for negotiation.

Gorman: Look… we can’t have any firing in there. I, uh…want you to collect magazines from everybody.
Frost: What the hell are we supposed to use man? Harsh language?
Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

Kieran @34, Noen usually does a lot better than that — not that that’s enough to save the vowels in that particular comment.

minTphresh @43: Honest, the descendants of the Merovingians aren’t shapechanging reptiles. Trust me on this one — I used to work for the Illuminati.
Takuan

http://www.amazon.com/Riotous-Assembly-Tom-Sharpe/dp/0871131439
rebdav

The enemy of your enemy is not always your friend. The ANC was active in Zambia and twice brutaly beat my uncle and aunt for being white, they lost two pregnancies that way. His crime? Being a white volunteer doctor in the early to mid 80′s. Just look up ANC, necklace, kerosene, and tires and decide if that brutal terrorism against other blacks is OK just because it also fights Aparthid in neighboring countries. This is like saying domestic police terror is OK in the US to fight Arab terror.
soubriquet

I wonder how many of the upright citizens of the U.S. who gave funds to the IRA in Northern Ireland are on the no-fly list?

If you think the IRA was justified, in the same way many think the ANC was justified, then perhaps you’ll eventually think 9/11 was justified too.
Belac

The fact that the ANC hasn’t gotten off the terrorist watch list is not surprising or even particularly egregious, considering other government inefficiencies. The injustice is that they were on it to begin with.
hobnob

#47 Teresa

Allowing for the vagaries of geolocation, “your property” appears to be a house with a small amount of yard in Kensington…

Nowhere near.

I notice you don’t mention what this intruder was doing. How big was he? How old? Was he doing anything more threatening than trespassing inside the wall around your yard?

I’m not inclined to converse with intruders other that telling them what to do, and what not to dare do. The bag of ‘tools’ he had with him is indicative enough of his intent.

That would be the Kensington Station, up at the intersection of Derby and Queen?

Fire your research guy.

What did you do with the fellow, by the way — just keep him around until the police showed up to claim him?

Indeed. Although I carry a firearm, I dread the day I ever have to use it for ‘the other purpose’. I truly am peace-loving, non-violent, law-abiding, garden variety middle class family man, dogs and all. I am compassionate and I am civil. Not for fear of legal repercussions – but rather because it didn’t even cross my mind – did I not put any hurt upon the man. If that’s what you’re asking.

You responded by pulling a gun on the guy, then getting your neighbor to come over and help you tie him up. It sounds to me like you had the situation well in hand.

The purpose of being ‘prepared’ (as in Boy Scouts) is so that when the most unexpected thing happens at the most inopportune time – as was the case here – one doesn’t panic and do a stupid thing, or be overcome by paralyzing fear and become incapacitated, but that one rather level-headedly acts in such a way that the tables are turned in one’s favour. One did the latter. Hence.

And since Johannesburg does have a relatively high crime rate, it’s possible the police were busy.

Interesting that you should mention this. Ironic, actually.

I have a meeting set up with the station commissioner for later this week regarding this matter. This will be my last post in this discussion as it is *completely* off-topic now. Apologies.

Teresa, I’m going to bet that you’re not from South Africa (without tracing your IP), simply judging by your perspective.
Kieran O’Neill

#25 Necklacing was officially condemned by the ANC leadership. There’s a Human Rights Watch report with some information here.

It really frustrates me how people reason as follows:

1. Mandela founded MK.
2. MK eventually bombed civilians.
3. People, some of whom may have been low-level members of MK, engaged in the horrific practice of necklacing.

Therefore, Mandela officially ordered necklacing. (From prison, presumably.)
Brian Carnell

@18 wrote:

“The ANC was a terrorist organization… Apartheid was wrong, but Mandela’s original approach was to use violence against innocents at a train station by planting bombs. That’s why he was sent to prison. (He obviously shouldn’t be on the list any longer)”

This is only partially accurate. The ANC was started in 1912 and tried peaceful nonviolence for decades. But nonviolence is only an effective strategy when you can shame your opponent — nonviolence doesn’t work against fascists who are willing to slaughter innocents and damn public opinion.

The Sharpville Massacre in 1960 made it perfectly clear that the South African government was willing to stomach any atrocity in order to maintain apartheid. It was only after the Sharpville Massacre that the ANC formally created a military wing with Mandela at its head.

I think it is very difficult to look at the ANC’s position in 1960 and classify them as a terrorist organization. Black South Africans were completely excluded from meaningful political participation and violently attacked by the government. WTF other option did they have? If that’s not a case where violence is morally permissible even with the full knowledge that inevitably innocents will be killed, it is hard to think of any situation that is.
martha_macarthur

Here in Costa Rica, our Attorney General was just turned away at Miami International last week.

He was traveling to the US to meet with a US Attorney General big wig there to take part in some trial process of a man they want to also prosecute here.

When he reached MIA with his diplomatic passport and visa the DHS first had him go to the ticket counter to prove that he had a return flight booked in advance because you know the top government lawyer in Costa Rica really wants to stay in the US and work in McDonald’s.

Then he was told he couldn’t enter the US because his name was on “the list” because every Costa Rican in the constitutionally demilitarized country is really a terrorist.

Now CR has decided to halt all extraditions and cooperative legal efforts with the US until an apology has been made and the ticket price reimbursed.
Elysianartist

What about the Irgun? Anyone who supported/supports that way of thinking, are they allowed to fly into the US? Silly question I know.
noen

t’s nc t s th sl flth t n frc stndng p fr bgtry nd rcsm.

The ANC set an important example”

Indeed, we could use some pointers. Tps n th fnr pnts f ncklcng trtrs r rgntly ndd.
KarlGustav

There is a bill being considered today by the US House of Representatives that would take the ANC off the list of terrorist organizations. It is expected to pass.
Kieran O’Neill

#32 And who would be “the usual filth”? Here at BB we do try not to sling bigotry like that around at each other.

Please read about necklacing and the ANC’s position on it, rather than believing the sensationalist newspapers/blogs you obviously use as “reliable” sources of information.
Dan

I think other countries should start their own terror watch lists, and they can put G-Dub on there.

Then again, if he can’t travel, he can LEAVE, and we’d be stuck with the potatohead.
Brian Carnell

@34 wrote:

“Please read about necklacing and the ANC’s position on it, rather than believing the sensationalist newspapers/blogs you obviously use as “reliable” sources of information.”

The ANC’s position on necklacing is very mixed. Yes, they denounced it, but it’s also true that Oliver Tambo waited almost two years from the start of the necklacing to do so. OTOH, necklacing is something that would not have happened without the perverse nature of apartheid — when people do not have access to legitimate authority, they will create their own authorities and we should not be surprised when these are filled with injustice and inhumanity.

You can also see the sort of blinders that some ANC leaders clearly developed with today’s example of Thabo Mbeki’s ridiculous statements in support of Robert Mugabe (just the other day Mbeki said there was no crisis in Zimbabwe) among other things Mbeki has championed.

Clearly, the ANC’s decision to resort to violence in the 1960s worked and was probably the group’s only real option. But the ANC paid a terrible price for that.
ianloic

Nelson Mandela was a terrorist. He engaged in a guerilla war against South Africa’s democratically elected government, attacking government and military targets. The organization he had led attacked civillian targets after his imprisonment.

I would argue that this kind of resistance is justified. I would argue that the South Africa’s democracy under appartheid where only whites could vote isn’t a legitimate democracy.

But if we’re going to make these kind of concessions for Nelson Mandella we probably have to make similar ones for other liberation struggles like the Palestinian and Kosovar ones.
Elysianartist

….and when it comes to those *ahem* other terrorists, the silence is deafening.
poptart

RE: necklacing – let’s not forget that the National Party apartheid government’s third party agents were responsible for stirring up some of the worst violence in the run-up to the 1994 elections, playing off political and cultural rivalries between the Inkatha Freedom Party and the ANC. That’s not to excuse atrocities like necklacing, but let’s contextualise it.

As for crime rates, Hobnob, my brother-in-law is a reservist on the South African Police’s Crime Response Unit which is frantically overworked.

They battle with budgets (his vehicle’s siren and hooter is out of order, but the van doesn’t get down-time for repairs because it’s needed in action, which means he has to barrel through red traffic lights with only the lights to warn oncoming traffic).

And yes, they struggle with communication – from crime victims who are so shocked they can’t remember their own name, let alone address to radio personnel in the control room who aren’t necessarily familiar with the area (Xhosa operators in Cape Town know streets in Langa backwards – and how to pronounce them – not so much Rondebosch, and vice versa for operators from the burbs. Let’s not forget we have 11 national languages and an education system STILL recovering from apartheid)

The cops also have people wasting their time from hoax calls to lonely old folks who call in and ask for a specific inspector to come check out their false alarm and have a cup of tea, calls to complain about loud music.

I can’t speak for your police station or the incident in question, but there is a possibility that they didn’t respond because they were attending to a much more serious case.

The cops are also horribly underpaid and given little respect in the community.

In my cynical opinion, it’s kind of obscene that police officers from low income areas like Khayelitsha who earn R2500 a month (US$331 or the equivalent of 100xMcMeals to put it in terms of buying power) and put their lives on the line have to deal with rich housewives whining about their R25 000 flatscreen TV being stolen.

I’m astonished that there isn’t MORE corruption (which is apparently very low among working cops who take their integrity very seriously, it’s only when we get up to Jackie Selebi level that it goes to hell).

And as bad as crime is (despite the falling crime rates, especially in Gauteng, where Hobnob lives, currently ranked second best province in the country to live mainly because of the sparking economy and rapidly dropping crime), it’s VERY much worse in low income areas, where people can’t afford private security firms, or heck, in shacklands like Nyanga, where much of the township doesn’t have electricity. Those streets are very dark and very scary at night.

Yes, crime is a problem. My middle class friends in nice suburbs bitch about break-ins or car theft or the occasional rare hijacking, but my friends from the townships have to deal with stabbings and gangsters and being shot in the leg for a cell phone, as happened a couple of months ago to a friend walking to the station.

Again, let’s put this is in context.

It’s not like crime started in 1994, it just got democratised.
Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

Hobnob @52:

Allowing for the vagaries of geolocation, “your property” appears to be … in Kensington.

Nowhere near.

Really? How interesting. Someday you must tell me how that works.

I notice you don’t mention what this intruder was doing. How big was he? How old? Was he doing anything more threatening than trespassing inside the wall around your yard?

I’m not inclined to converse with intruders other that telling them what to do, and what not to dare do.

If this is such a frequent occurrence for you that you have a standing policy for dealing with it, I wonder that you’ve gotten yourself into such a lather about this single instance.

It seems especially odd when your standing policy precludes talking to the intruders you capture. Surely this must be an extremely familiar event to you, if you’re this certain that there’s nothing useful or relevant your captives could say to you.

This will be my last post in this discussion as it is *completely* off-topic now. Apologies.

But it wasn’t off-topic before? I somehow fail to see the distinction.

…

I should stop sticking pins in you. You’re neither big enough nor bad enough to make it worthwhile. I think what really happened was this guy scared the bejesus out of you, and that’s why you’re so blustering and angry about the government and the police force.
noen

It’s hyperbole Kieran. Extravagant exaggeration meant to convey my frustration the Bush Mafia Family. I would never necklace anyone. My God, think of the carbon emissions!
Kieran O’Neill

#47, #50: Teresa, Poptart, thank-you both.

#49: Tak-kun, you may also appreciate Harold Strachan, a humble art teacher and columnist who has the perhaps dubious honour of having created the first bombs for the ANC military wing. He is a master of wit, and of what he calls “the concentration camp laugh”. His account to the TRC of his experiences in an Apartheid-era prison is at once chilling and riotously funny. His columns are carried by the Witness (findable with a little searching) and Noseweek (pay site except for last month’s issue).

Here’s some commentary on the Iraq war and Dubya:

“So then, you will say, we should all as one nip it in the bud. Yes, but when and how does the disgusting thing start? Well you can start by stealing an election and feeding your purposefully dumbed-down electorate a lot of sanctimonious jingo blather about liberty and decency, and deceive them and lie and trick them into a merciless unlawful war against a sovereign state posing no threat to them, and take them beyond the point of no return. Iâ€™m talking about Hitler, of course.”
-Harold Strachan, from “Pale Mothers“, last month’s Noseweek.
ZippySpincycle

Elysianartist, the silence is probably due to our universal fear of retribution from our ZOG overlords. Or is it our Illuminati overlords? Or our Trilateral Commission overlords? I keep getting our overlords mixed up.
LeavingHalfway

I have to agree with the commentators who point out the ridiculousness of needing a bill to get someone off the terror watch list. How many bills did they have to pass to get everyone(?) on in the first place?
Kieran O’Neill

Well, from what I understand, the protests in Tibet haven’t been entirely peaceful. Maybe when they turn more violent, they’ll put the Dalai Lama on the terrorist list too.

The point is that declaring war on “terror” was a ridiculously ill-considered idea, at least in terms of making the world better/safer for U.S. citizens and the rest of us. The only purpose it serves is to give the neocons an excuse to “project American power” (= declare war on small nations as an exercise in global intimidation).
WeightedCompanionCube

And really, calling the current government “a bunch of murderous morons”, and saying the old was better.

But that’s how you get people to like you at BB!
eljesusmartinez

“Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., called ANC members’ inclusion on watch lists a “bureaucratic snafu” and pledged to fix the problem.”

SNAFU – He’s so right! Situation is normal.
Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

Hobnob @17:

Two nights ago, I arrested an intruder on my property.

Allowing for the vagaries of geolocation, “your property” appears to be a house with a small amount of yard in Kensington, a thickly settled and very desirable old suburb known for its parks, private schools, upscale shopping, landscaping, and fashionable little restaurants.

I notice you don’t mention what this intruder was doing. How big was he? How old? Was he doing anything more threatening than trespassing inside the wall around your yard?

Fortunately for me I was armed…as I always am (for when stuff like this happens), and I was able to subdue him by threat of force alone.

A good thing, considering how close your neighbors’ houses are to your own.

I shouted to my wife to call the police. A visitor to my home also phoned the national emergency number (10111). Both of them spent more than 10 minutes just trying to get the persons who answered to GET THE STREETNAME RIGHT. Their huge station is 1.38 km from my house.

That would be the Kensington Station, up at the intersection of Derby and Queen?

Meanwhile my neighbour shows up, and we bind the suspect. Niegbour’s wife phones the police station (1,380 meters away). After an unsuccessful attempt at getting help, she got into her car and DROVE THERE. On arrival, she had to first “fill in a form” before a vehicle would be dispatched to my house 1.38 km away.

You’re saying the police had no sense of urgency. That seems appropriate. An unarmed person trespassed on your property. Unless you’re leaving something out, that’s a misdemeanor. You responded by pulling a gun on the guy, then getting your neighbor to come over and help you tie him up. It sounds to me like you had the situation well in hand. And since Johannesburg does have a relatively high crime rate, it’s possible the police were busy.

What did you do with the fellow, by the way — just keep him around until the police showed up to claim him?

The following day I phoned them to ask them what’s up. They had no recollection, no record, no knowledge of the incident.

It was a misdemeanor trespass. The guy shouldn’t have been in your yard, but he was removed from your yard, and I doubt he’ll be back. What else were you looking to have happen?

Kieran, what do I do? I have two young daughters in my house. I live in my “middle class white neighbourhood” because I have nowhere else to go. I am a middle class white.

You live in a nice neighborhood.

Kieran’s statistics look pretty solid, and what they say is that the crime rate is still high, but it’s been going down. If you never had to worry about crime before the ANC took power, then the crime rate must have been dreadful in neighborhoods that didn’t have the advantages yours did.

You share your country and city with a lot of very poor, very desperate people. Many of them show no inclination to die quietly and so decrease the surplus population. Many of them can read a map well enough to find your neighborhood.

There are four ways to deal with the problem: (1.) You can murder them. (2.) You can ignore them, and hope the problem will go away. (3.) You can throw all your resources into keeping them out of your territory. (You already tried that. It didn’t work.) (4.) You can support social programs that reduce the number of poor, desperate people in your vicinity.

I recommend the fourth option. What should you do about it? Vote more money for education. You’ve got a large body of citizens who not that long ago were systematically oppressed and denied. Problems like that take a while to fix. A better educational system is a good place to start.

Vote money for more civil order and public safety for everyone. This will help reduce the number of desperate nogoods committing crimes against people of all sorts, yourself included.

Vote more money to treat AIDS, and for public health in general. You’re living in the middle of a slow-motion pandemic. That’s destabilizing and a hardship for any government in any country.

Support your government while doing everything you can to improve and reform it.

Alternately, you can vote to stick with a two-tier economy and an adversarial attitude. Just bear in mind that if the government fails and there’s another revolution, the next one’s going to be much, much nastier.
Zergonapal

Heads are gonna roll in the DHS.
strider_mt2k

-assuming anyone is there at the switch and not out say, killing the odd prostitute or anything.

Oh, I’m sorry. Am I supposed to have the least little amount of trust or faith in my government?

I try, I really do but it’s so HARD nowadays.
laffmakr

“The former South African Ambassador to the USA was flagged and delayed when she attempted to visit a dying cousin”

When did Nelson get the sex change?
Graham

http://urltea.com/35m8

The important bit: “As Wyomingâ€™s representative-at-large in the House of Representatives, Cheney was a vigorous supporter of U.S. aid to anti-communist contra rebels in Nicaragua in the mid-1980s and voted against imposing economic sanctions on South Africaâ€™s apartheid government in 1986.”
Graham

sorry, that link didn’t work…maybe this will.

http://www.issues2000.org/2004/Dick_Cheney_Foreign_Policy.htm
JSG

Who the hell made up this terror watch list?

The U.S. Terror watch list.

1. Anybody with Abdul, Muhammad, el, al, or bin in their names.
2. Anyone else.
mrbill1234

If the 80′s were today, the ANC would probably be considered a terrorist organisation. One mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter.
Dan Paddock

If my wife advocated putting flaming tires around the necks of her political opposition, I imagine I might be on the watch list as well.

Of course, if she did, I would go into hiding since we can’t seem to agree on much politically.
george57l

#3 Laffmaker

???????

Former South African Ambassador to US is a female person.

Nelson Mandela (male person) is NOT a former South African Ambassador to the US.

Perhaps I’m missing some other link here that justifies your humorous comment, but I can’t see it.
hobnob

lthgh, n th crrnt cntxt, t my b pltclly ncrrct t (stll) clssfy th NC s trrrst rgnztn, pls ls cnsdr th fllwng…

ndr NC rl, S lks lk ths:
53 mrdrs ch nd vry dy
150 rps ch nd vry dy
750 vlnt sslts vry dy
350 vlnt hs rbbrs vry dy
40 cr hjckngs vry dy
Rmpnt, nrstrctd crrptn n vry lvl f gvrnmnt
ncmprhnsbl lvls f ncmptnc thrght ll strctrs, brght n by nptsm nd ffrmtv ctn
Crmblng nfrstrctr (lc., fl, hlth, d, lw, wtr, rds, tc), rpd dcy f stndrds
Th pr r gttng prr (s mch fr “fr th ppl”)

Wrld, pls hr r pls! Th NC gvrnmnt, prt frm shwng sgns f fst bcmng jst nthr “typcl frcn gvrnmnt”, s cmplct n lw-lvl wr gnst th “wht sttlrs”. Thy r trnng blnd y t th shckng lvls f crm nd crrptn n S.

“t sccssflly md th chng frm rmd strggl t pc” my rs! Wht “pc” s thr f nghbrs, frnds, cllgs r trtrd, rpd nd mrdrd n drvs? lt f bld s flwng n Sth frc…f y cn stmch t, g ggl sm f th hrrr strs f wht ppl hd t ndr n thr wn hms bfr bng slghtrd lk nmls! Jst ths wk ln, frm jst n nws src, rd f 3 ctgnrns wh wr rpd by brglrs. Chldrn bng rpd n frnt f thr prnts. Fthrs bng xctd n frnt f thr chldrn (wh r frcd t wtch). Thn, s prtng sht, ths spwn f th dvl wll tll th srvvrs “W r gng t d ths t ll y whts!”

Th nly rsn th NC s n lngr trrrst rgnztn s bcs, thrgh trrr, thy chvd thr gl f rplcng ths cntry’s gvrnmnt. ‘n NT syng th ld gv. ws ‘gd’, bt t lst thy wr bttr thn ths bnch f mrdrs mrns.
Graham

Further to my earlier post, I wonder how many Contras are on the list?
Kieran O’Neill

#10 Hobnob.

People like you make me deeply and thoroughly embarrassed to be a white South African.

If you bother to look at crime statistics, you may notice that murder has steadily fallen since the ANC cam to power, and that violent crimes in general have been falling over the last few years.

Accept the fact that the police no longer provide your middle class white neighbourhood with the same, unfairly disproportionate level of protection which they did under Apartheid.

Accept the fact that this is fair.

Please.
Kieran O’Neill

And really, calling the current government “a bunch of murderous morons”, and saying the old was better.

Please, please read some of the TRC report some time. Please assure yourself that the NP government knowingly and deliberately tortured and murdered people.

Blame the current government for not doing enough about violent (and other) crime, but don’t propose ridiculous conspiracy theories suggesting that they’re actively perpetuating it.
Desertsnowman

t lst 5 ldrs n th NC r crrntly ndr nvstgtn fr crrptn r cnvctd crmnls.

Thy r dfntly crrpt nd shld nt b n pwr hwvr being flagged as a terrorist organization, thats just silly. mn thy cnt vn rgnz bsc nfrstrctr n S, hw r thy sppsd t rgnz trrrst ctvts?
Kieran O’Neill

#14: I don’t really think the ANC is significantly more (or less) corrupt than most political parties and/or governments. We’re just fortunate that our political and judicial systems are such that more gets detected and made public than in most countries.

That’s probably a good thing.

(Which is not to say that it won’t go away – take the recent dissolution of the Scorpions as an example.) :(