October 2008 | Vol 1 | Issue 42
Mandela taken off US terror list "for now"
WASHINGTON DC. Nelson Mandela has been removed from the United States' list of suspected or known terrorists, but US authorities say they could reverse their decision at any time. A spokesman for the State Department said that Mandela, 89, would still be monitored in case he "consorted with suspected terrorists, or played dominos with them, or napped on their porch".
Mandela was placed on the US's terror watch list in 1965, after an investigation by the State Department confirmed that the ANC veteran had been observed "making eye-contact with white people, flaunting his good looks, and smiling in a deliberately provocative way at white girls".
However this morning Washington announced that it had reconsidered Mandela's status as a known terrorist, and was provisionally removing him from its list.
Speaking to journalists at the White House, State Department spokesman George Custer said Mandela would no longer be required to submit to a cavity search on entering or leaving the United States, although he said that the traditional strip search would remain "at the discretion of immigration officials, in case they feel he might have stolen a hotel towel or a silver tea-tray or something, like Africans have a tendency to do".
Custer said that Mandela's record as a statesman and promoter of tolerance had been an inspiration to generations of Americans, but said that the Clinton administration had taught the country that "just because someone's charming and educated, doesn't mean he ain't diabolically crooked".
"Mr Mandela would be the first to defend the rights of the elderly," he said. "Senior citizens can do anything younger people can do. And that includes acts of terrorism.
"We're not saying Mr Mandela is a terrorist, but for now we'd like to keep an eye on him, just in case he gets a whiff of that old Commie black magic, and those old tendencies come back and he does something unwise."
Asked what this might entail, Custer said that the CIA had isolated a "small but very specific range of insurgent-type attacks that an 89-year-old man might orchestrate."
"These include disabling a parked car by wedging a Zimmer frame in its steering mechanism, setting fire to himself by accident in a crowded theatre, or launching a symbolic onslaught on global capitalism by falling asleep at the controls of an electric shopping trolley and ramming a shop assistant."
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