Salon's Joan Walsh: American Rightwing Opposition to Nelson Mandela

Flag of the African National Congress,
South Africa's Current Ruling Party

Joan Walsh's article at Salon is linked below.

Salon's Joan Walsh: Much of the American Right Opposed Mandela

"Ronald Reagan made it a priority to fight domestic and international divestment efforts — efforts that, in the end, helped pressure the South African government to enter negotiations and free Nelson Mandela. Reagan vetoed an amazingly (if belatedly) bipartisan bill to impose tough sanctions on the apartheid regime. Of course then-congressman Dick Cheney had voted against the sanctions in 1986, and he defended his position while running for vice president in 2000, telling ABC: 'The ANC was then viewed as a terrorist organization … I don’t have any problems at all with the vote I cast 20 years ago.'"

---Joan Walsh, Salon