Dear Editor,
Reports in the British media say the American CIA spied on iconic Nelson Mandela and provided information to the racist White apartheid regime to have the Black leader arrested. Last Sunday, London Sunday Times described the revelation made by the CIA spy in having Mandela arrested as a “bombshell disclosure”. The paper said the “former CIA agent has finally confirmed what the world has long suspected: the US agency was behind the arrest that put Nelson Mandela in prison for 27 years”.
The CIA has had a reputation of undermining nationalist movements and spying on independence and freedom fighters to keep tabs on their activities so as to delay freedom of these colonies. As it did to Mandela, the CIA is known to have spied on British Guiana’s Dr Cheddi Jagan and other leaders in the colony (as well as leaders in other colonies) and passed on information to the British authorities to have Jagan, his wife, Janet, and other independence leaders arrested as a means of destroying the independence movement. The CIA supported Burnham who became an ally of imperialists.
At the time of Mandela’s August 1962 arrest, the Cold War between the US and Soviet Union was at its height following the Cuban missile crisis and the rise to power of a democratic Jagan communist Government in British Guiana. Reports note that “the CIA had eyes on various regions of the globe where they saw communism as a growing threat, including Cuba, East Germany, China, Laos, Cambodia, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, and Vietnam. The US intelligence community regarded communism as the biggest threat to democracy at the time, and believed that any spread of Soviet power would compromise the country’s safety”.
Because of America’s anti-communist position, “President Ronald Reagan had placed the ANC on a terrorism watch list in the 1980s – and Mandela required special permission to visit the US during and after his 1994 to 1999 presidency. He was finally removed from the list in 2008”. Our own Jagan and his wife, Janet were on a similar list as the Americans did whatever was required to keep Jagan out of office; Burnham and the PNC were agents of imperialism and anti- revolutionary.
Mandela was the leader of the anti-apartheid resistance movement in South Africa similar to how Jagan was leader of the peaceful revolutionary movement in Guyana. The British media reported that “a CIA agent and the spy agency, known for its anti-leftist activities and anti-nationalist activities, “played a ‘key role’ in the arrest of Mandela‚ which subsequently led to his trial and imprisonment for almost 28 years”. Ironically, the CIA kept Jagan out of office for almost 28 years.
According to the CIA spy Donald Rickard, who worked under the title of Deputy Consular General to obtain diplomatic immunity, the CIA kept tabs on Mandela’s movement. Rickard said he helped track down Mandela because the CIA viewed him as “the world’s most dangerous communist”.
Last March 30‚ Rickard said: “We were teetering on the brink here and it had to be stopped‚ which meant Mandela had to be stopped. And I put a stop to it.”
Rickard said he learnt Mandela was on his way to Natal, travelling between Johannesburg and Durban. He was dressed as a chauffeur.
“I found out when he was coming down and how he was coming… that’s where I was involved and that’s where Mandela was caught.”
The former spy didn’t explain how he received the information on Mandela’s whereabouts. But he said he believed Mandela was “completely under the control of the Soviet Union, a toy of the communists” and was about “to incite” the people of Natal into a mass rebellion against the apartheid regime.
Rickard defended the arrest of Mandela saying the racist White regime, which was being supported by the US and Britain, would have collapsed and been taken over by communists unless America came to the rescue of the racists. “And I put a stop to it.”
Since the revelation, there have been calls for the CIA to come clean about its relationship with the apartheid government and Mandela’s arrest. Mandela’s eldest grandson, now an ANC MP, told reporters in response to the latest revelation: “Whilst we were always aware of the West’s role in overt and covert support for the apartheid state, (this) disclosure has put an end to decades of denial revealing the fact that the USA put its imperial interests above the struggle for liberation of millions of people. We call on freedom loving people of the world to come out in condemnation of this betrayal of our nation, the peoples of Southern Africa and all who suffered as a consequence of the USA’s support for the brutal apartheid state.”
Yours truly,
Vishnu Bisram
