- President George W Bush has finally appended his signatures on the removal of Nelson Mandela, the former South African President and leader of the governing African National Congress (ANC), from the United States terror watch list, the White House confirmed.
The signing comes ahead of the 90th birthday on 18 July of the freedom fighter and Nobel Prize laureate. The latest development authorises the removal of any reference linking the ANC and its leaders to terrorism from the US databases.
It was approved last week by US Senators before being sent to President Bush.
"Today the United States moved closer at last to removing the great shame of dishonouring this great leader by including him on our government's terror watch list," Senator John Kerry said.
A similar bill was passed by House of Representatives in June when a co-sponsor of the bill, California Democrat, Barbara Lee expressed delight that "we are taking this important step to finally right this inexcusable wrong."
The terror watch list legislation was introduced during the presidency of Ronald Regan in the 1980s. It only permitted the ANC leaders to travel to United Nations headquarters in New York alone. Senators believed it had "wrongly" labelled heroes and freedom fighters as "terrorists."
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had earlier urged a Senate committee to remove the restrictions on the ANC, referring 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."
The House Committee Chairman on Foreign Affairs, Howard Berman, who had tabled the bill, said it was "shameful" for the US to still treat the ANC as a "terrorist organisation."
"Amazingly, Nelson Mandela still needs to get a special waiver to enter the United States based on his courageous leadership of the ANC. What an indignity. This legislation will wipe it away," he said.
ANC - Africa's existing oldest party - was banned and labeled a terrorist organisation by the former apartheid government of South Africa in 1960. The party's several leaders were either imprisoned or forced into exile.
Mr Mandela was jailed for 27 years before being released. He was voted President of South Africa in 1994, served only one term in office and retired. The aging leader is still committed to humanitarian work as evidenced by his participation in a special UK concert that seeks to raise funds for the world's poor and underprivileged communities.
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