My memory of the word “terrorist” goes as far back as the old Bophuthatswana. At that time, Mkhonto We Sizwe and other liberation army militants used to enter South Africa through the Ramatlabama border to Botswana, supposedly all the way from a military training camp in Lusaka.
We were told from a very young age that they were terrorists, and if we ever came across them, they need to be reported. In fact there was a special name for them called “matlolaterata” which literally meant they “jumped” the border fence.
What was very fascinating at first about these individuals was the fact that they always walked with their backs facing the direction they were going. Apparently that was meant to fool the security forces to believe that they were actually going the other direction if they were to try and trace their footsteps.
But as young kids, we loved coming across them in the veld because they always gave us money in exchange for information about police road blocks and so forth. We never saw them as a threat, to the extent that we even gave one fellow a place to sleep for the night when the parents were not around. Needless to say, we ended up getting into trouble.
It is therefore a bit nostalgic to hear now that the ANC was also blacklisted as terrorist in the American government database, and that Nelson Mandela has always needed a waiver to travel to the US.
Surely the US knew that this labeling was a mere propaganda ploy by the apartheid government, but probably they couldn’t help being seduced into the charade because the white government was in power.
I agree 100% with Condoleezza Rice that the US must truly be embarassed.
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