The official story goes something like this: Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born in 1918 into the Thembu tribe’s royal family. He studied law at two prestigious universities and became involved in “anti-colonial politics,” joining the African National Congress (ANC). He was committed to non-violent protest in gaining sovereignty for blacks. In 1962 he was arrested and convicted of sabotage and conspiracy to overthrow the government and was sentenced to life in prison.
An international campaign lobbied for his release, which was granted in 1990, and he was hailed as martyr of white racism by the international media. This popularity propelled him to be elected president of South Africa in 1994, where he continued with his struggle to “end ethnic tensions and bring about racial equality.” Over the years, Mandela has received over 250 awards, including the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize, the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Soviet Order of Lenin.
That’s the official story. His critics, however, have a different opinion.
They point to the fact that Mandela was not imprisoned for opposing apartheid, or segregation, in Africa, but for being a communist terrorist murderer-bomber in service to the Soviet Union.
The ANC’s guerrilla force, known as uMkhonto we Sizwe—MK, or “Spear of the Nation”—was founded in 1961 by Mandela and his advisor, the Lithuanian-born communist Jew Joe Slovo, born Yossel Mashel Slovo, who was officially named secretary general of the South African Communist Party in 1986.
Slovo had been the planner of many of the ANC terrorist attacks, as detailed in the book Victory or Violence: The Story of the AWB of South Africa, including the January 8, 1982 attack on the Koeberg nuclear power plant near Cape Town, the Church Street bombing on May 20, 1983, which killed 19 people, and the June 14, 1986 car-bombing of Magoo’s Bar in Durban, in which three people were killed and 73 injured.
