I’m certain this confirmation of a long-standing rumor will win us a lot of friends in former colonies across Africa and Asia.
From the Gurdian: Ex-CIA spy admits tip led to Nelson Mandela's long imprisonment
A tip from a CIA spy to authorities in apartheid-era South Africa led to Nelson Mandela’s arrest, beginning the leader’s 27 years behind bars, a report said on Sunday.
Donald Rickard, a former US vice-consul in Durban and CIA operative, told British film director John Irvin that he had been involved in Mandela’s arrest in 1962, which was seen as necessary because the Americans believed he was “completely under the control of the Soviet Union”, according to a report in the Sunday Times newspaper.
“He could have incited a war in South Africa, the United States would have to get involved, grudgingly, and things could have gone to hell,” Rickard said.
Now that I think about it, it does seems like we got into a lot of other conflicts all over the world. Though I’m not sure “grudgingly” is the word I would use. What I didn't realize is that the CIA was in the war prevention business all along. That certainly puts our various Latin American interventions in a completely different light. All those coups and support for brutal right-wing dictators was really to promote peace. I totally missed that angle. I guess it wasn’t because as Kissinger said in one case “The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.”
But why get involved in South Africa? There are a number of things that make South Africa significant. There’s the mineral wealth of course (including uranium), but it also exercises control over the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa. This is an important shipping lane for trade between the Indian ocean to the Atlantic. With the opening of the Suez canal, it became less significant. But then, in 1956 the UK, France and Israel launched an attack on Egypt to take the Suez (which the Egyptian government under Nasser had recently nationalized). The canal was closed from 1956-57 and then again from 1967-75 after the Six-Day war. Ships had to take the longer route around the Cape of Good Hope during those years. Of course, at the time, the US wasn’t entirely opposed to colonial rule in various parts of Africa and Asia. Seen in that light, from the CIA’s perspective, the fate of one African freedom fighter is rather immaterial.
And what was so frightening about Mandela and the ANC that made the CIA turn him in? Well firstly, they were black and wanted to overthrow the apartheid regime. But perhaps more importantly, the ANC calls itself a social democratic party and is a member of the Socialist International. At the time, they were engaged in a political struggle against the economic and racial subjugation of South Africa’s native peoples. Is this the kind of thing people mean when they talk about the “intersectionality” of race and class?
But what does this revelation mean? Here’s how the BBC puts it:
The events leading up the the arrest of Nelson Mandela, on a dark night near Durban in 1962, have always been murky. In the era of Cold War politics, Mandela, then leader of the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC), was considered a terrorist and a threat to the West.
As Mr Rickard put it, he was "the most dangerous communist" outside of the Soviet Union, although Mandela always denied being a member of the party.
Rumours have circulated for years that the CIA trailed Mandela but the agency resisted previous attempts to shine a light on its alleged involvement in his arrest. Rickard's admission will bring renewed pressure to declassify documents from the time.
The story isn’t being covered by the NYT or WaPo yet.