Last week when the major news organizations announced the death of Nelson Mandela, they began a world wide campaign of ignoring and rewriting history. For several days after Mandella’s death they espoused the virtues of the deceased, as talking-head after talking-head continued to proclaim Mandella’s greatness and moral excellence, which was echoed by President Obama and several past Presidents. I could only wonder if this was the same man that I remembered from my youth.
Even though I grew up in the mountains, valleys and prairies of Central Idaho, the Nelson Mandella I remember hearing and reading about, when I was in my twenties, was a very vicious terrorist. The Mandella I remember was born an Xhosa of the Thembu Royal Family. He attended Fort Hare University and the University of Witwatersrand where he studied law.
Nelson Mandella became involved in anti-colonial politics, and joined the African National Congress (ANC). Mandella co-founded the Umkhonto we Sizwe (abbreviated as MK and translated as “Spear of the Nation”) in association with the South African Communist Party. The MK was founded as the armed wing of the ANC, and its mission was to fight a guerrilla war against the South African Government.
The MK launched its first attack on December 16, 1961 by setting bombs off at government installations, and shortly after this attack the United States declared the MK a terrorist organization. These bombings continued until 1965 when after suffering set backs in South Africa the MK formally allied itself with the Zimbabwe Peoples Revolutionary Army, and crossed into Rhodesia and engaged the Rhodesian Army for about one year.
The MK abandoned Rhodesia and continued to set bombs at a multitude of fast food outlets where many civilians were killed and injured.
In 1983, the MK detonated the Church Street bomb in Pretoria which killed nineteen people and injured 217.
Just before Christmas 1985, the MK set the Amanzimtoti bomb on the Natal South Coast, and when the bomb detonated five people died and forty were injured.
This was followed in 1986 when the Durbin Beach-Front bomb was touched off killing three people and injuring an additional sixty-nine innocent people.
In 1987, a bomb outside a Johannesburg court killed three people and wounded ten.
1988 was a banner year for MK bombings. A bank bombing killed four civilians and injured eighteen. A bomb in a magistrate court killed three people and a car bomb set at Ellis Park Rugby Stadium killed two and injured thirty-seven people.
From 1985 to 1987 the MK had a campaign that placed tank mines in rural roads. An estimated 30 landmines exploded killing some twenty-five people, mostly poor blacks.
In addition, from 1976 to 1986 some 130 people were killed by MK bombs. Of this number, thirty were from security forces, and one-hundred were civilians of which forty were white and sixty were black.
Between 1961 and 1987 hundreds of civilians were mutilated by MK bombs, and even though Nelson Mandella was in prison for many of those years, he remained their founder and spiritual leader.
Apparently if you are a blood thirsty terrorist and your side is victorious all is forgiven. Ignoring or rewriting history aside, Mandella had a lot of blood on his hands and to this writer he will always remain a terrorist.
Quote for the Week: “Every cock crows on his own dung-hill.”----- Unknown.
Jim's Corner is posted here with permision of the writer
