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Mr Sexwale

Herald Reporters
THE duplicitous nature of the United States government was once again exposed yesterday following the arrest of former South African Minister of Housing Mr Tokyo Sexwale at the JFK International Airport for being on the terrorist watch list compiled by the Regan administration at the height of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa.
Anti-apartheid activists were slapped with sanctions by the US government as they were considered terrorists.

The sanctions have since been lifted on some of the ANC leaders with founding president Nelson Mandela only being cleared ahead of his 90th birthday in July 2008.

And it had to take then US president George W Bush’s signature on a Bill to enable Mandela visit the US.
Mr Sexwale was released after detention.

The Sexwale incident has embarrassed the US, the self-proclaimed proponent of democracy and human rights, which has always opposed the use of selective application and is disrespectful to African leaders.

Midlands State University lecturer Dr Nhamo Mhiripiri yesterday said the US systematically uses those tactics to embarrass African leaders, but ends up embarrassing itself in the process.

“Imagine that even Mandela as President of South Africa had to be cleared in order to travel to the US. This is why we have said that in the case of Zimbabwe, the sanctions would remain in place for more years than we ever expect.

“For us as Africans it should be very worrisome as it is disrespectful to our leaders.
“If you look back at how Tokyo was placed on that list, it was not only him as an individual, but as a member of the African National Congress, the group he belonged to. There is group identity in place here.”

Dr Mhiripiri said the illegal sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe affected every Zimbabwean.
“In the case of South Africa, there are bilateral relations they signed with the US and there is no way South Africa would send Tokyo to US, knowing he is a terrorist. It’s a lesson to all Africans that these guys will humiliate us at any given time,’’ said Dr Mhiripiri.

National Constitutional Assembly president Professor Lovemore Madhuku said the incident was “extremely ridiculous so many years into South Africa’s independence.”

“This is unbelievable. It is extreme. This cannot be true, if it is true that is a scandal and ridiculous in all aspects,’’ said Prof Madhuku.
Mr Sexwale said he will approach the US government with a complaint.

The former Housing minister’s lawyer Mr Lesley Mkhabela told the SABC that Mr Sexwale was arrested at JF Kennedy Airport while on a business trip to New York.

“He has instructed us to take the matter up with the authorities of the US so we will address the letter to the US embassy in South Africa,” said Mr Mkhabela.

Mr Mkhabela said they will also send the copy to the state’s departments requiring clarification on the status of this issue and also assuring that this shall not happen again in the future, the website reported.

In the Mandela case, Bush signed the Bill in time for Mandela’s 90th birthday on July 18, 2008.
Ronald Reagan had originally placed ANC on the list in the 1980s.

“Today the United States moved closer at last to removing the great shame of dishonour this great leader by including him on our government’s terror watch list,” Senator John Kerry said after the bill was approved.

Thereafter, then US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged a Senate committee to remove sanctions on the ANC, calling it a “rather embarrassing matter that I still have to waive in my own counterpart, the foreign minister of South Africa, not to mention the great leader Nelson Mandela.”

Before the removal of his name from the terrorist watch list Mr Mandela had to get special certification from the US secretary of state that he was not a terrorist in order to visit the US.

Mandela and other members of the ANC have been on the list because of their fight against South Africa’s apartheid regime, which gave way to majority rule in 1994.

Before independence apartheid was the South Africa’s system of legalised racial segregation that was enforced by the National Party government between 1948 and 1994.

The bill gives the State Department and the Homeland Security Department the authority to waive restrictions against ANC members.