Mandela's curious background

Fifteen years ago today, African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela, a political prisoner for 27 years, was freed from Victor Verster prison outside Cape Town, South Africa. Expected by the waiting media to drive past them in a car, Mandela surprised everyone by walking out, hand in hand with his wife, Winnie Mandela.

It was the time of the fall of the Soviet Union and the South African regime of apartheid no longer had to fear the geo-strategic threat from the USSR which had been focused for years on Southern Africa as a whole, as confirmed by KGB and other documents available in recent years. Thus Mandela, who had rejected the non-violent strategies for national liberation developed in South Africa by Mahatma Gandhi, was considered to be no longer a threat.

African National Congress: background
The ANC was formed in Bloemfontein, SA by non-Communists in 1912 as the South African Native National Congress. A concerted effort directed from Moscow had by 1931 converted the ANC to a Marxist-Leninist front dominated for decades by open leaders of the Moscow-aligned South African Communist Party, as directed by Lenin in 1920 at the Second Congress of the Communist International, or Comintern. (In 1921, Lenin stated that the Comintern regarded South Africa as "one of its frontlines".)

In 1927, leaders of the Comintern directed that the SACP "must determinedly and consistently put forward the creation of an independent native republic" in South Africa. The ANC, still non-Communist, now had to be converted into a "militant nationalist revolutionary organization". Using Lenin's express methods of the manipulation of social forces and infiltration of popular organizations, first, the Marxist-Leninists captured the leadership offices of the ANC Youth League, then those of the ANC itself.

When Mandela made decisions as an ANC leader, he did so as part of a Moscow-directed team, with 27 SACP (South African Communist Party) members out of an ANC National Executive of 35. The ANC and the SACP were so intertwined that they proclaimed themselves as "two equal pillars of the revolution".

Mandela's beliefs
The charismatic leader Mandela was an enthusiastic supporter of the Soviet dictatorship that Mikhail Gorbachev later alleged had killed tens of millions of its own citizens. In 1962, long after most Communists of East and West had removed Stalin from their hagiography, and by which time evidence abounded of the USSR being the most comprehensive dictatorship in history, Mandela wrote that applying "the great qualities of revolutionary geniuses like Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin" would transform South Africa into a veritable paradise:

"Under a Communist Party government" he wrote, "South Africa will become a land of milk and honey".

Under Mandela's auspices, the ANC developed terrorist tactics that included the infamous 'necklacing' of opponents and informers: this involved placing a petrol-drenched car tyre around the neck of a living victim, and setting fire to it.

On June 12, 1964, Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment for his involvement in terrorism. Contrary to ANC/SACP/pop-star propaganda and popular opinion of the time, in later years Mandela spent much of his imprisonment in comfortable, if not luxurious, quarters, fitted with telephone, fax and other communications devices that enabled him to organise against those who provided them. He spent 27 years in prison, although he could have gained freedom at any time by denouncing violence, the fascist government's condition of his continued incarceration. On December 7, 1988 he was moved into a luxury home in the grounds of Pollsmore Prison and after his release from this government-provided house, he moved into a very luxurious home in one of the Johannesburg’s wealthiest suburbs, although conducting media interviews from a small house he rented in Soweto.

On May 10, 1994, Nelson Mandela was inaugurated President of South Africa.

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