OPINION

After the 9/11 attacks, the public was told al Qaeda acted alone, with no state sponsors.  But the White House never let it see an entire section of Congress’ investigative report on 9/11 dealing with “specific sources of foreign support” for the 19 hijackers, 15 of whom were Saudi nationals.

It was kept secret and remains so today.

President Bush inexplicably censored 28 full pages of the 800-page report. Text isn’t just blacked-out here and there in this critical-yet-missing middle section. The pages are completely blank, except for dotted lines where an estimated 7,200 words once stood (this story by comparison is about 1,000 words).

A pair of lawmakers who recently read the redacted portion say they are “absolutely shocked” at the level of foreign state involvement in the attacks.

[pullquote]What on earth could have prompted Murdoch and his hirelings in the (Fox) News Corp to turn on the Saudis, a major partner in trade and crime of the US ruling class? How did this come about? [/pullquote]

Reps. Walter Jones (R-NC) and Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) can’t reveal the nation identified by it without violating federal law. So they’ve proposed Congress pass a resolution asking President Obama to declassify the entire 2002 report, “Joint Inquiry Into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001.”

Some information already has leaked from the classified section, which is based on both CIA and FBI documents, and it points back to Saudi Arabia, a presumed ally.

The Saudis deny any role in 9/11, but the CIA in one memo reportedly found “incontrovertible evidence” that Saudi government officials — not just wealthy Saudi hardliners, but high-level diplomats and intelligence officers employed by the kingdom — helped the hijackers both financially and logistically. The intelligence files cited in the report directly implicate the Saudi embassy in Washington and consulate in Los Angeles in the attacks, making 9/11 not just an act of terrorism, but an act of war.

Modal Trigger

The findings, if confirmed, would back up open-source reporting showing the hijackers had, at a minimum, ties to several Saudi officials and agents while they were preparing for their attacks inside the United States. In fact, they got help from Saudi VIPs from coast to coast:

LOS ANGELES: Saudi consulate official Fahad al-Thumairy allegedly arranged for an advance team to receive two of the Saudi hijackers — Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi — as they arrived at LAX in 2000. One of the advance men, Omar al-Bayoumi, a suspected Saudi intelligence agent, left the LA consulate and met the hijackers at a local restaurant. (Bayoumi left the United States two months before the attacks, while Thumairy was deported back to Saudi Arabia after 9/11.)

SAN DIEGO: Bayoumi and another suspected Saudi agent, Osama Bassnan, set up essentially a forward operating base in San Diego for the hijackers after leaving LA. They were provided rooms, rent and phones, as well as private meetings with an American al Qaeda cleric who would later become notorious, Anwar al-Awlaki, at a Saudi-funded mosque he ran in a nearby suburb. They were also feted at a welcoming party. (Bassnan also fled the United States just before the attacks.)

WASHINGTON: Then-Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar and his wife sent checks totaling some $130,000 to Bassnan while he was handling the hijackers. Though the Bandars claim the checks were “welfare” for Bassnan’s supposedly ill wife, the money nonetheless made its way into the hijackers’ hands.

Other al Qaeda funding was traced back to Bandar and his embassy — so much so that by 2004 Riggs Bank of Washington had dropped the Saudis as a client.

The next year, as a number of embassy employees popped up in terror probes, Riyadh recalled Bandar.

“Our investigations contributed to the ambassador’s departure,” an investigator who worked with the Joint Terrorism Task Force in Washington told me, though Bandar says he left for “personal reasons.”

FALLS CHURCH, VA.: In 2001, Awlaki and the San Diego hijackers turned up together again — this time at the Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center, a Pentagon-area mosque built with funds from the Saudi Embassy. Awlaki was recruited 3,000 miles away to head the mosque. As its imam, Awlaki helped the hijackers, who showed up at his doorstep as if on cue. He tasked a handler to help them acquire apartments and IDs before they attacked the Pentagon.

Awlaki worked closely with the Saudi Embassy. He lectured at a Saudi Islamic think tank in Merrifield, Va., chaired by Bandar. Saudi travel itinerary documents I’ve obtained show he also served as the ­official imam on Saudi Embassy-sponsored trips to Mecca and tours of Saudi holy sites.

Most suspiciously, though, Awlaki fled the United States on a Saudi jet about a year after 9/11.

As I first reported in my book, “Infiltration,” quoting from classified US documents, the Saudi-sponsored cleric was briefly detained at JFK before being released into the custody of a “Saudi representative.” A federal warrant for Awlaki’s arrest had mysteriously been withdrawn the previous day. A US drone killed Awlaki in Yemen in 2011.

HERNDON, VA.: On the eve of the attacks, top Saudi government official Saleh Hussayen checked into the same Marriott Residence Inn near Dulles Airport as three of the Saudi hijackers who targeted the Pentagon. Hussayen had left a nearby hotel to move into the hijackers’ hotel. Did he meet with them? The FBI never found out. They let him go after he “feigned a seizure,” one agent recalled. (Hussayen’s name doesn’t appear in the separate 9/11 Commission Report, which clears the Saudis.)

SARASOTA, FLA.: 9/11 ringleader Mohamed Atta and other hijackers visited a home owned by Esam Ghazzawi, a Saudi adviser to the nephew of King Fahd. FBI agents investigating the connection in 2002 found that visitor logs for the gated community and photos of license tags matched vehicles driven by the hijackers. Just two weeks before the 9/11 attacks, the Saudi luxury home was abandoned. Three cars, including a new Chrysler PT Cruiser, were left in the driveway. Inside, opulent furniture was untouched.

Democrat Bob Graham, the former Florida senator who chaired the Joint Inquiry, has asked the FBI for the Sarasota case files, but can’t get a single, even heavily redacted, page released. He says it’s a “coverup.”

Is the federal government protecting the Saudis? Case agents tell me they were repeatedly called off pursuing 9/11 leads back to the Saudi Embassy, which had curious sway over White House and FBI responses to the attacks.

Just days after Bush met with the Saudi ambassador in the White House, the FBI evacuated from the United States dozens of Saudi officials, as well as Osama bin Laden family members. Bandar made the request for escorts directly to FBI headquarters on Sept. 13, 2001 — just hours after he met with the president. The two old family friends shared cigars on the Truman Balcony while discussing the attacks.

Bill Doyle, who lost his son in the World Trade Center attacks and heads the Coalition of 9/11 Families, calls the suppression of Saudi evidence a “coverup beyond belief.” Last week, he sent out an e-mail to relatives urging them to phone their representatives in Congress to support the resolution and read for themselves the censored 28 pages.

Astonishing as that sounds, few lawmakers in fact have bothered to read the classified section of arguably the most important investigation in US history.

Granted, it’s not easy to do. It took a monthlong letter-writing campaign by Jones and Lynch to convince the House intelligence panel to give them access to the material.

But it’s critical they take the time to read it and pressure the White House to let all Americans read it. This isn’t water under the bridge. The information is still relevant ­today. Pursuing leads further, getting to the bottom of the foreign support, could help head off another 9/11.

As the frustrated Joint Inquiry authors warned, in an overlooked addendum to their heavily redacted 2002 report, “State-sponsored terrorism substantially increases the likelihood of successful and more ­lethal attacks within the United States.”

Their findings must be released, even if they forever change US-Saudi relations. If an oil-rich foreign power was capable of orchestrating simultaneous bulls-eye hits on our centers of commerce and defense a dozen years ago, it may be able to pull off similarly devastating attacks today.

Members of Congress reluctant to read the full report ought to remember that the 9/11 assault missed its fourth target: them.

Paul Sperry is a Hoover Institution media fellow and author of “Infiltration” and “Muslim Mafia.”

By Stephen Lendman

Ukraine matters. It’s strategically located. It’s in Europe’s geographic center. It borders seven countries. In alphabetical order, they include Belarus, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Russia. After Western/Central Russia, it’s Europe’s largest country territorially.

It’s resource rich. Zbigniew Brzezinski once said “without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an empire.”

Recently he said if Russia ever reunites with Ukraine, it’ll be a Eurasian powerhouse. If Ukraine allies with Western Europe, Moscow will be significantly weakened geopolitically. The battle for Ukraine continues. Its future is up for grabs. A previous article said street protests are manipulated.

Washington’s dirty hands are involved. Young militants were recruited. They’re street thugs. They’re up to no good. They’re paid to protest. Radical nationalists joined them. Ukraine’s future is at stake. On Tuesday, mixed reports surfaced. President Viktor Yanukovych was quoted saying:

“We cannot talk about the future without talking about restoring trade relations with Russia.” He stressed a “future treaty on strategic partnership.”

[pullquote]The people are rising everywhere but are leaderless. Protests are ongoing in Thailand. Ordinary people demand change in Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Britain, France, Germany, other Western European nations, Brazil, Chile and elsewhere. They do it publicly en masse. Western media scoundrels largely ignore them. They support wealth, power and privilege. They abhor social justice.  They endorse imperial wars. They back abhorrent political repression. They do so when America or its allies commit it.[/pullquote]

Does he or does he not mean a Customs Union? Agreeing to one rules out an EU alliance. It’s one or the other, not both.  At the same time, he repeated what he said earlier. He favors European integration. On December 10, Voice of Russia (VOR) headlined “Yanukovych approves plan to sign Ukraine-EU agreement in March 2014.”

Former Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk announced it. So did Yanukovych. He did so after meeting with three former Ukrainian presidents – Kravchuk, Leonid Kuchma, and Viktor Yushchenko.

“We have sent the government a task to speed up this work,” said Yanukovych.  As soon as we reach an understanding and such a compromise is achieved, it will be signed.  I have said repeatedly that since 1997, the program of the Party of Regions has had the integration of Ukraine into European space as a strategic objective.”

On December 11, a First Deputy Prime Minister Serhiy Abruzov-led delegation left for Brussels.

Work on the “joint Ukrainian-EU working group” will begin, said Yanukovych.

“Our purpose is very simple. We want to get conditions that will satisfy Ukraine, Ukrainian commodity producers, and the people of Ukraine now.”

“These questions will only be answered when we conduct these negotiations, when we tell each other the truth.”

“If the conditions don’t satisfy us, we will demand changes. We will defend our interests. We need to minimize the risks for our economy. If we find understanding and if such compromises are reached, the signature will be put” on paper.

What Yanukovych hopes to gain is one thing. What EU countries intend to give is another.  So far, it’s been all sticks and no carrots. Harsh structural adjustments are demanded.  EU enlargement commissioner, Stefan Fule, stopped short of explaining. He said the EU would offer “financial assistance programs to help Ukraine implement the agreement when signed.”

IMF debt entrapment is planned. So are harsh mandates no country should accept. Popular interests are subordinated. Western corporate priorities come first. Most important is geopolitically separating Ukraine from Russia.  Washington wants it increasingly isolated. It’s surrounded by US bases. It’s targeted by offensive missile systems. They’re falsely called defensive ones.  Former President Kravchuk said Yanukovych will release protesters arrested during protests.

He’ll do so “without interfering in the work of judges.” It doesn’t mean outstanding charges will be dropped. Western-instigated radical elements call for revolution. Ukraine’s sovereignty is at stake. It’s been through this before.

Promises made were broken. Exploitation followed. Once deceived should be enough. Good sense demands avoiding a repeat. Conditions continue very much in flux. Russia’s lower house State Duma approved a non-binding statement. It accused Western nations of interfering in Ukrainian affairs.  It said protesters were destabilizing the country. It urged Western countries to “stop mounting external pressure on the politics of a country that is brotherly to us.”

Imagine if Russian and/or Chinese officials urged Americans to demand US policy changes. Imagine if they did it in Washington. Imagine if they did in it front of Capitol Hill and/or the White House.  Imagine how long it would take before they were arrested, roughed up, detained, then expelled. Imagine Western broadsheet headlines denouncing their interference.  Justifiable nonviolent protests continue in Bahrain and Egypt. Occasional ones surface in Saudi Arabia, other Gulf states and Jordan. Palestinians demonstrate often for long denied justice.

Protests are ongoing in Thailand. Ordinary people demand change in Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Britain, France, Germany, other Western European nations, Brazil, Chile and elsewhere. They do it publicly en masse.

Western media scoundrels largely ignore them. They support wealth, power and privilege. They abhor social justice.  They endorse imperial wars. They back abhorrent political repression. They do so when America or its allies commit it.

They blame Ukraine’s government for deploying police against disruptive protesters.

In 2011 and 2012, they largely turned a blind eye to cops assaulting nonviolent Occupy Wall Street demonstrators across America. Police brutality was vicious. US Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland lawlessly interfered in Ukraine’s internal affairs. She’s been in Kiev for days.  She met publicly with opposition leaders. So did EU officials. She and they joined street protesters. It bears repeating. Imagine if Russian, Chinese or other foreign officials acted in similar fashion in Washington.

John Kerry is an unindicted war criminal. His Senate tenure was disgraceful. He’s going all out to become Washington’s worst ever Secretary of State.  On December 10, he issued a statement on Ukraine. It reflected imperial arrogance writ large. He lied saying:

“The United States expresses its disgust with the decision of Ukrainian authorities to meet the peaceful protest in Kyiv’s Maidan Square with riot police, bulldozers, and batons, rather than with respect for democratic rights and human dignity. This response is neither acceptable nor does it befit a democracy. (T)he United States stands with the people of Ukraine. They deserve better.”

One day only, Ukrainian police overreacted. Authorities took them to task for doing so. For three weeks, they largely showed restraint. It’s not easy against Western-manipulated disruptiveness.  Kerry turned truth on its head. Police are obligated to address disruptive street actions. Letting thugs run things would be irresponsible.

Letting Washington’s imperial agenda go unchallenged would be worse. Kerry doesn’t give a damn about ordinary Ukrainians.  He supports Western ruthlessness worldwide. He fronts for US global dominance plans. He stopped short of explaining.

NATO Deputy Secretary General Alexander Veershbow meddled disruptively in Ukrainian affairs. “Ukraine’s future lies with Europe,” he said. Western nations continue “follow(ing) Ukraine events with concern.”

Early Wednesday pre-dawn, Ukrainian police dismantled central Kiev barricades. Protesters resisted disruptively. Hooligans led them.  Clashes resulted. At least 10 policemen were injured. So were several protesters. Police denied reports about beating up elderly Ukrainians in Independence Square. Kerry and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton denounced police efforts to restore normalcy. They blamed them for Western-instigated disruptiveness.  On December 11, Voice of Russia (VOR) headlined “Kiev metro closed over mass protests, 10 police officers injured while unblocking central streets.”

Protesters are “led by opposition deputies.” They’re resisting State Emergency Service personnel and utility workers.  Ukrainian court ordered unblocking central Kiev. For three weeks, opposition elements disrupted normal city activities.

“Armed confrontations between the protesters and the police go on,” said VOR. “Police officers are being hit.” Their protective shields, helmets and clothing “are being snatched from them.”

Most approaches to central Kiev were blocked. Authorities advised Ukrainians to stay out of city center.  Protesters continued acting disruptively. They control City Hall. “There is a roadblock and metal fencing at the building’s entrance,” said VOR.

Several arrests were made. Police refrained from using “impact munition.” They largely acted with restraint. They haven’t so far evicted protesters from City Hall or the Trade Union House. Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said police are acting lawfully. They’ll respond as needed to street thug-instigated disruptiveness. They’ll do so within the limits of Ukrainian law. Western propaganda is vicious. It’s unrelenting. It’s standard practice. It’s been ongoing since street protests began.

Public sentiment is manipulated mischievously. It’s done to support wrong over right. Ukrainian authorities are blamed for acting responsibly. If they don’t confront street thugs, who will?  On December 8, masked anti-government protesters toppled Vladimir Lenin’s statue in central Kiev.  They did so with steel ropes. They smashed it with sledgehammers.  They sang Ukraine’s national anthem. They hoisted Ukraine’s flag  atop the empty pedestal.  Jubilant chants were heard. They shouted “Yanukovych, you’ll be next.” It was a staged event. It got widespread Western media coverage.

It was reminiscent of US forces toppling and destroying Saddam’s Firdos Square Baghdad statue in April 2003. Doing so symbolized imperial triumph. Iraqis continue suffering horrifically. They live in a virtual war zone. Previous articles explained.

On December 10, RT headlined “From Russian invasion to colored Statue of Liberty: Hoaxes fuel Ukrainian protest.”  Fake videos and other fabricated images are commonplace. Washington uses them often. They manipulated public sentiment  against Saddam, Gaddafi and Assad. They turn truth on its head.

Rumor-mongering claimed Russian troops entered Ukraine to “help stamp out the protests,” said RT.  Other rumors claimed “special forces were being shipped in from all over Ukraine, and tanks were rumbling their way into central Kiev.”  Ukrainian news outlets cited foreign reports. They showed America’s Statue of Liberty and Brazil’s Statue of Christ the Redeemer lit up by blue and yellow lights.

They reflect Ukrainian flag colors. Images surfaced on Facebook. Opposition elements used them. News agencies reported them.  It was a hoax. RT said it was “an experiment to show how easy it (is) to manipulate public opinion.” Images were “photoshopped by a Ukrainian blogger and occasional online prankster, Den Alampiev.”

“I decided to see how people are consuming hoax news,” he said. “It took me two minutes to make fake photos of the Statue of Liberty and the Statue of Christ.”

“I wrote a short description and posted (it) on Facebook, (Russia’s) Vkontakte, Twitter and LJ. In exactly 24 hours, the photo spread across the social media.”

It created a false impression. It suggested widespread global support for protesters. Fake news and images work this way.  Putin bashing is relentless. He’s assailed for his outspokenness. He opposes Washington’s imperial agenda. He’s vilified for his anti-war advocacy. He continues going all out for resolving Syria’s conflict peacefully. He’s waging a lonely struggle. He supports Iran’s peaceful nuclear program. He’s despised for advocating multi-polar world policies.

Edward Lucas is The Economist‘s international editor. On December 10, he headlined a Wall Street Journal op-ed “How the West Lost Ukraine to Putin.”

He has big aims, said Lucas. They’re “audacious.” His “ex-KGB regime (wants) to restore the Russian empire.”

EU expanding “east was one of its greatest achievements. (T)he so-called EU-8 of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia represent some of the Continent’s most striking success stories.”

 

Fact check

Their sovereignty was co-opted. Their populations were exploited for profit. Their economies are largely troubled.

Some are basket cases. Future prospects are grim. Ordinary people endure extreme hardships. Corporate predation works this way. Lucas didn’t explain. Lies substituted for truth.

He claims EU membership offers genuine benefits. Former Soviet republics “truly wanted to reform, modernize and integrate with the West,” he said.

“Their governments and people alike realized that joining the EU was the only way to do it. And nobody was (going) to stop them.”  Russia “ma(de) (Yanukovych) and his country an offer they could not refuse.” Details “are still unfolding.”

They’re polar opposite EU terms. They feature carrots, not sticks. They offer benefits America and EU nations deplore. Not according to Lucas. EU membership “offers free trade.” Harsh structural adjustments bring “benefits later, and easier visas.”  Lucas claimed Yanukovych’s 11th hour decision against an EU alliance “left EU officials baffled.” They don’t understand Russian policy, he added.  It “needs a geopolitical hinterland (of) economically weak and politically pliable” countries, he claimed.

He turned a blind eye to longstanding Western financial war at home and abroad. Economies are wrecked for profit. Populations are ruthlessly exploited.  America wants all countries treated the same way. So do key EU partners. They want monied interests served above all others. Don’t expect Lucas to explain. He supports their worst policies. Ukraine dodged a bullet by avoiding them. It did so provided Yanukovych doesn’t accept going forward what he rejected.

Not according to Lucas. “(I)f Ukraine falls into Russia’s grip,” he said, “then the outlook is bleak and dangerous.”

Doing so, he claimed, means “crony capitalism triumphed.” Europe’s “security will be endangered. NATO is struggling to protect the Baltic states and Poland from the integrated and increasingly impressive forces of Russia and Belarus. Add Ukraine to that alliance, and a headache turns into a nightmare.”

 

Fact check

Putin deplores militarism. He advocates peace, not war. He wants cooperative relations with all other countries. He doesn’t seek confrontation.  NATO is a killing machine. It’s a US-led imperial alliance. It seeks global expansion. It’s a force for evil, not good. It threatens world peace.  Stop NATO editor Rick Rozoff calls it “the first attempt in history to establish an aggressive global military formation.” Its existence threatens humanity’s survival.

Lucas calls getting tough on Russia the “best way (for) Europe or America (to) help Ukraine.”  Yanukovych’s best choice it turning East, not West. It’s the best way to turn around Ukraine’s troubled economy.  It’s how best to serve all Ukrainians responsibly. Don’t expect Lucas and likeminded ideologues to explain. They endorse imperial lawlessness. They support the worst of corporate predation. Responsible advocacy opposes both.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.  His new book is titled “Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

 

by Anthony Monteiro, Black Agenda Report

elson Mandela lived a long life, with 3 careers, one before he was locked up, another while in prison, and a third after his 1990 release. Dr. Anthony Monteiro reflects upon the life, the lessons and the legacies of Nelson Mandela.

 

Nelson Mandela is dead. Thus ends an epoch in the revolutionary history of the South African people. The generation which included Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Oliver Tambo, Alfred Nzo, Govan Mbeki, Ahmad Karthdra Dennis Goldberg and others who assumed the stage of history from within the ranks of the ANC Youth League in the mid-1940’s. Sisulu and Tambo were Mandela’s closest comrades and his political and intellectual mentors. Mandela’s life is, finally, a lens through which to understand the South African struggle. Rather than a single line, his life proceeded through stages and contradictions.

Since radical politics starts with concrete analysis of concrete situations, we are compelled to study Mandela as a living human being in a concrete epoch of history. To do this we must study the stages of his life, how his consciousness evolved, and actualized in his organizational and ideological activity and most importantly how he emerged as a revolutionary committing himself completely to the liberation of black South Africans and to Africans generally. We must also forthrightly address those contradictions in his development that produced the weakening and finally the abandonment of his revolutionary resolve. This essay does not propose to tackle all of the question concerning Mandela’s biography, but will attempt to establish a context for understanding them.

Western capitalists, presidents, prime ministers, politicians, religious leaders and elite intellectuals are bestowing upon Mandela praise and celebration and speak of him in language seldom used in reference to presidents, popes, royalty or leaders of finance and industry. The very ones who supported his jailers, and for over one hundred years the oppression of the South African people, hypocritically anoint him one of the “greatest men of the 20^th century”.  This rank hypocrisy must not obscure our duty to seek out the truth of Mandela’s life as part of understanding the struggles that lie ahead both in South Africa and the US.

There are essentially four stages in Mandela’s life.

The first stage 1918–1943. He is born in 1918 to an aristocratic Xhosa family in a South Africa colonized by the English and Dutch settlers. By 1943 he completed his university education. In this period he does not foresee an activist future, let alone a revolutionary one for himself.

The second stage, 1943 to 1960. This is the period when his revolutionary consciousness takes form.

He comes into contact with revolutionary intellectuals who help form his understanding of organization, ideology and how to connect radical ideas to mass protest. This period ends with the Sharpeville Massacre in March 1960. During this time Mandela and his colleagues in the ANC and the South African Communist Party are indicted by the racist regime in 1956 for treason. Also the ANC, now under the leadership of Walter Sisulu, produces “The Freedom Charter”, which sets forth a radical and socialist program for the people. With the Sharpeville Massacre the third stage of Mandela’s life begins.

The third stage, 1960—1990.This is perhaps Mandela’s most revolutionary period.

The ANC and its ally in the struggle the South African Communist Party conclude that the regime will not relent and has decided to crush the people’s movement by force. They insisted the regime had become fascist, closing all doors to a peaceful and democratic transition to majority rule.

It is with this evaluation that the ANC and the South African Communist Party (SACP) decide to form the military wing of the liberation movement Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK)—The Spear of the Nation. The formation of the armed wing begins in earnest the decisive battle for freedom. The armed struggle lasts 30 years and along with mass uprisings eventually broke the back of the regime.

Mandela and 19 of his comrades were captured on July 11, 1963 in a farmhouse in a small town named Rivonia, outside of Johannesburg. He and nine of those captured were put on trial and convicted of high treason and sentenced to life in prison on Robben Island. Mandela serves 18 years on Robben Island and almost nine in Pollsmoor Prison and eventually under a form of house arrest in a villa outside of Capetown. While on Robben Island Mandela Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Ahmad Kathrada, and others would constitute a high command of the revolution. Driven underground the ANC establishes an external wing headed by Oliver Tambo. It is this external wing that built international support for the movement, as well as directing underground activity within the country. At the same time MK remained active carrying out low level sabotage against the regime, setting up external bases in neighboring African nations, building international support and training young militants and recruiting cadre from within the country. The Western nations under the guise of fighting communism and terrorism embraced the regime, propping it up militarily and financially. Over 300 US corporations and banks had investments and loans in South Africa. Five hundred British corporations and a significant number from France, West Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and others made up the foundation of the apartheid economy. The World Bank and the IMF loaned tens of billions of dollars to the regime to finance both its foreign trade and police and military. They thrived off super exploited black labor in mines, farms and factories. The military alliance between the US, Britain, Israel and South Africa would supply advanced weaponry and eventually nuclear technology to the white regime.

The fourth stage 1991—2013. This stage begins with his release in 1990 from prison. This stage is the most contradictory and problematic.

Upon being released from prison he proclaims himself to be a disciplined and committed member of the ANC, bound by its collective decisions. He affirms his solidarity and gratitude to the ANC and South African people’s allies, including Fidel Castro, Yasser Arafat and Muamar Gaddafi. However, by 1994 when the first democratic elections are held and he elected President, Mandela’s revolutionary resolve had weakened and rather than an economic program based upon the Freedom Charter and the radical redistribution of wealth and income, a program of neoliberal capitalism and protection of western corporate wealth and white south African interests is implemented. In return blacks got the right to vote, a vague commitment to affirmative action, and modest improvements in the lives of the poor through electrifying some townships and rural areas and the provision of clean running water. The system of super exploited black labor remained in place. Poverty would increase under the new government. While political apartheid ended economic apartheid in a different guise took shape. With the exception of a few black multi millionaires and a small black middle class of professionals and government workers the suffering of working masses and poor has become more desperate. The poor in the end became poorer and the inequalities in the nation are now greater than at the time Mandela was elected, among the worse in the world .

It is clear, for most of his life as an activist and icon of his people’s movement Mandela was a revolutionary. From the mid 1940’s until 1990 he thought and acted as a revolutionary. After 1990 he takes a different course, which ends in him being embraced by the global forces of counterrevolution; in fact the enemies of the people he fought so valiantly and selflessly for. It is Mandela as a ally and representatives of western imperialism and neo-colonialism that the media will highlight in the praise and memorializing of Mandela. They will claim him as a savior of capitalism and white interests in South Africa. For them he protected western and white interests, especially the vast mineral resources and cheap labor, not just of South Africa, but of southern Africa, the world’s mineral treasure house.

There are six events, which turn Mandela, the majority of the ANC , SACP and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU)—what is known as the revolutionary alliance– against itself , setting the stage for the undermining of the revolutionary trajectory of the movement. In the end the ANC government became a neo-liberal capitalist regime , upholding a neo-liberal capitalist program.

First Mandela’s decision in the late 1980’s to, in violation of ANC discipline, begin secrete negotiations with the regime. This is a very critical moment. This occurs at the same time a great, and as it turns out, decisive uprising takes place in South Africa. The people take on the military and police and in pitch street battles defeat them and their black stooges, thereby liberating townships and Bantustans. The epicenters of these battles were the townships of Soweto and Alexandra, and their personification was the heroic Winnie Mandela. Townships became liberated zones. MK was active in training a new generation of fighters and funneling weapons to them. In 1987/1988 the South African army invaded southern Angola and was defeated at the great battle of Cuito Cuanavale. A combined force of the Angolan army, Cuban volunteers, and MK fighters emerged victorious. In the wake of these victories inside South Africa and Angola the regime and its Western backers, led by the US, sought a truce in order to save what they could of Western interests and the white minority from possible physical elimination. To begin genuine negotiations the regime is forced to free Nelson Mandela and all political prisoners, to unban the ANC, COSATU, the Pan Africanist Congress and the South African Community Party.

Second, the ANC agrees to assume responsibility for the debt accumulate by the white regime and took an IMF loan to cover it in 1993. The loan is estimated to have been $25 billion. This large loan included secret ‘conditionalities’ that ensured that a democratic South Africa would not waver in paying off the regime’s debt, most of which was accumulated to pay for its repression and murder of African people. The IMF made sure a black government would inherited undemocratic economic policies, as well as informal conditions that the the ANC government retain the apartheid regime’s Finance Minister and its Reserve Bank governor. These strings and secrete protocols undermined the new government’s ability to solve problems of poverty, joblessness, hunger , homelessness and AIDS. Financial, trade and monetary policies remained under the control of whites and foreign capitalist interests. These concessions assured South Africa’s admission into the World Trade Organization, but have left the people under a regime of economic apartheid and enduring poverty.

Third, the ANC abandoned its right to control the nuclear technology and weapons given to the regime by the US, Britain and Israel. Six nuclear weapons were assembled by the 1990’s. Before the anticipated changeover to a majority-elected government, the South African government dismantled all of its nuclear weapons, the first nation in the world which voluntarily gave up all nuclear arms it had developed itself. This was a western decision to keep nuclear weapons and technology out of the hands of an African nation. Had this not been done South Africa would have been the only black government in the world with a nuclear weapons capacity. The significance of this is that nuclear weapons are a way of evening the playing field in global diplomacy.

Fourth, agents of the regime assassinated Chris Hani, head of Umkonto we Sizwe and chairman of the Communist Party in 1993. At this point Govan Mbeki and the left wing of the ANC demanded an end to negotiations, reasoning that the ANC could not negotiate with a regime that murders its leading members. Mandela and his allies overrule them and insist upon continuing the negotiations. The significance of this is had negotiations been ended a new round of popular uprising would have begun and new more militant terms put on the table, including international prosecution of regime agents, rather than the Truth and Reconciliation process that occurred.

Fifth, on March 17,2011 South Africa as a member of the UN Security Council supports a resolution put forward by the US, Britain and France allowing NATO to bomb Libya, eventually invade it and brutally assassinate its leader Muammar Gaddafi. The South African representative passionately argued in favor of the Western proposal. The significance of this is that it signaled a turn by South Africa in international relations to a pro Western imperialist posture, even turning its back on the ANC’s long time financial, political and military ally, Gadaffi.

Sixth on August 16, 2012 the South African army, now commanded by Africans, fires upon demonstrating mine workers, killing 34, reminding the world of the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre. The difference this time is the murderers are black, just like the victims. This was a demonstration that the South African government would kill striking miners in defense of the economic interest of foreign mining companies. Neither the ANC, the South African Communist Party nor COSATU have condemned the killing.

While the events after 1990 cannot all be attribute to Mandela and it is true that he did not wholeheartedly sign off on all the decisions made by the ANC government. Certainly by the mid 2000’s Mandela was no longer a part of the governing or political processes in his nation. However, from the late 1980’s when he began secrete negotiations with the regime and his signing off on an economic program of neo liberal capitalism that went against The Freedom Charter cannot be overlooked in any evaluation of Mandela last period. He became in most respects an enabler of the neo-colonization of South Africa and part of handing the nation and its economy over to the West.

In the end, the question is not whether Mandela was a good, wise man and elegant man, he was all of these and perhaps more. Undeniably he sought racial peace and solidarity. Certainly Mandela was never a terrorist (a status the US government kept him in until 2008), he always sought to free his people from oppression, injustice and poverty. Moreover, he was always an exemplary human being, especially as he pursued revolutionary aims. The question of his legacy is whether he remained true to the revolutionary commitments he made early in his life, commitments for which he was imprisoned for 27 years. A concrete historical analysis of his life shows that at the end he faltered, lost his revolutionary resolve and either lost confidence in his people or ceased to recognize the possibilities inherent to struggle. Those of us who believe in freedom embrace, salute and uphold the revolutionary Mandela. At the same time we must unapologetically admit that Mandela died not as a revolutionary, but as a symbol of the system which oppresses his own people. A new generation of fighters is emerging as the nation grieves Mandela’s passing, they will I am sure return to the Mandela of the ANC Youth League, The Freedom Charter, Rivonia Trial, and Umkonto we Sizwe, to the revolutionary Mandela. And so the dialectics of resistance assert and reassert themselves as the struggle for freedom pushes forward.

Long Live the Revolutionary Mandela. We humbly express our love and gratitude for your sacrifice and commitment.

Anthony Monteiro is a professor of African American Studies at Temple University. He can be contacted at tmon(at)comcast.net.