Mandela Betrayed His Own People

Here is an essay by John Pilger on the South African apartheid which never really went away:

http://johnpilger.com/articles/south-africa-20-years-of-apartheid-by-another-name

Q: What happened?

A: On 11 February, 1990, Nelson Mandela stepped out on the balcony of Cape Town City Hall with the miners' leader Cyril Ramaphosa supporting him. Free at last, he spoke to millions in South Africa and around the world. This was the moment, an historic split-second as rare and potent as any in the universal struggle for freedom. Moral power and the power for justice could triumph over anything, any orthodoxy, it seemed. "Now is the time to intensify the struggle," said Mandela in a proud and angry speech, perhaps his best, or the last of his best. 

The next day he appeared to correct himself. Majority rule would not make blacks "dominant". The retreat quickened. There would be no public ownership of the mines, banks and rapacious monopoly industries, no economic democracy, as he had pledged with the words: "a change or modification of our views in this regard is inconceivable". Reassuring the white establishment and its foreign business allies - the very orthodoxy and cronyism that had built, maintained and reinforced fascist apartheid - became the political agenda of the "new" South Africa.

Secret deals facilitated this. In 1985, apartheid had suffered two disasters: the Johannesburg stock market crashed and the regime defaulted on its mounting foreign debt. In September that year, a group led by Gavin Relly, chairman of the Anglo-American Corporation, met Oliver Tambo, the ANC president, and other liberation officials in Mfuwe, Zambia. 

The Relly message was that a "transition" from apartheid to a black-governed electoral democracy was possible only if "order" and "stability" were guaranteed. These was liberal code for a capitalist state in which social and economic democracy would never be a priority. The aim was to split the ANC between the "moderates" they could "do business with" (Tambo, Mandela and Thabo Mbeki) and the majority who made up the United Democratic Front and were fighting in the streets. 

The betrayal of the UDF and its most effective components, such as the National Civic Organisation, is today poignant, secret history.

In other words, Nelson Mandela betrayed his own people. Why did he do this? Maybe he was tricked; maybe he was just a fool. Whatever the case, the only people he saved were the whites who still own everything in South Africa.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Pete Townsend