Alwaght-A former CIA spy has finally confirmed what the world has long suspected: the United States spy agency was behind the arrest that put Nelson Mandela in prison for 27 years.
Donald Rickard has confirmed that he helped South Africa’s apartheid authorities find and arrest Nelson Mandela because he viewed him as a “toy of the communists”.
Rickard said he and his handlers believed Mandela was “the world’s most dangerous communist outside of the Soviet Union” and he had no qualms about tipping the authorities off about his whereabouts in 1962, the height of the Cold War.
Mandela's detention at a police roadblock in Howick, KwaZulu-Natal led to the Rivonia Treason Trial of the ANC's high command that would see him spend 27 years in prison. The CIA’s involvement in his detention after 17 months on the run has long been suspected but has never been confirmed until now.
Zizi Kodwa, national spokesman of Mandela's ruling African National Congress (ANC) party, called the revelation "a serious indictment" of decades of CIA interference in South Africa, which he claimed was ongoing.
"We have recently observed that there are efforts to undermine the democratically elected ANC government," he alleged. "They never stopped operating here."
"It is still happening now - the CIA is still collaborating with those who want regime change."
Mr. Rickard, the then US vice-consul in Durban, suggested that informants had tipped him off that Mandela was visiting the seaside city and said he told South African police when he learned the anti-apartheid activist was due to return to Johannesburg.
Mandela, Mr. Rickard believed, was “completely under the control of the Soviet Union, a toy of the communists”, and was about “to incite” the Indian population of Natal into a communist-led mass rebellion which could open a new front in the Cold War.
Mr. Rickard, who retired from the CIA in 1978 and spent the rest of his life in a remote spot in Colorado, died two weeks after the interview.
Former associates of Mandela were not surprised by the confirmation of what was long reported. Ronnie Kasrils, a senior ANC member who became an intelligence minister, said the Americans' involvement was nonetheless “a most shameful incident of betrayal”.
This comes amid reports that the CIA is currently involved in a 'soft coup' plot against the current South African president Jacob Zuma.
Late February this year, South Africa’s ruling party accused US diplomats of “irregular activities”, pointing out that Washington is trying to foment regime change inside the country.
A spokesman for the African National Congress called on the US government to clarify the activities of some its diplomats.
“There seems to be irregular activities coming from the US Embassy,” said Keith Khoza. The ANC party will communicate their concerns to Washington through diplomatic channels, he said.
