WASHINGTON – Thousands of pages of US intelligence documents on NelsonMandela were made public on Wednesday, revealing that Washington continuedto monitor the South African anti-apartheid hero as a potential Communistmenace even after he was released from prison, a group that sued to obtainthe papers said.
The Washington-based group Property of the People released the papers tomark the 100th anniversary of Mandela’s birth. It said it obtained themafter years of litigation.
“The documents reveal that, just as it did in the 1950s and 60s with MartinLuther King Jr and the civil rights movement, the FBI aggressivelyinvestigated the US and South African anti-apartheid movements as Communistplots imperilling American security,” the group’s president Ryan Shapirosaid in a statement.
“Worse still, the documents demonstrate the FBI continued its wrong-headedCommunist menace investigations of Mandela and the anti-apartheid movementeven after US imposition of trade sanctions against apartheid South Africa,after Mandela’s globally-celebrated release from prison, and after the fallof the Berlin Wall.”
South Africa’s first black president, who died in 2013 and remains a globalicon for his struggle against apartheid and message of reconciliation after27 years in prison, was regarded with suspicion by Washington during theCold War and remained on the US terrorism watchlist until 2008.
Property of the People said its trove included documents from the major USintelligence agencies, the FBI, CIA, DIA and NSA, most of which have neverbeen seen by the public.
“The Mandela Files” can be found on its website propertyofthepeople.org.
Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC) has been in power since the endof apartheid in 1994 and remains in a governing coalition with the SouthAfrican Communist Party, which also resisted the white-minority government.
Southern Africa was a key Cold War battleground, as newly independentstates in the region such as Angola and Mozambique aligned with Moscow.
Celebrations have been held across South Africa this week to mark Mandela’s100th birthday, including a rousing speech on Tuesday by former USpresident Barack Obama, who said the world should resist cynicism over therise of strongmen.