
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, July 17, 1990                   TAG: 9007170313
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

MANDELA WOULD RUIN HIS NATION'S ECONOMY

IF NELSON Mandela has his way, he will do to productive South Africa what dozens of militant revolutionaries did to virtually all of black Africa. They seized political control and nationalized everything. Then, with open communist assistance, they led their peoples into grinding poverty and ironclad tyranny.

It was a betrayal of America's fundamental principles to make a hero out of Mandela - allowing him to visit the White House and speak before our Congress!

My opposition to Mandela has nothing to do with race. Ghanaian economist/journalist George B.N. Attiyak is one black African who hasn't been blinded by the supposed freedom movement. He writes: "Out of 45 black African nations, just four allow their people to vote, choose their leaders and express themselves freely. Twenty-three countries are military dictatorships where no political parties are permitted. The rest are one-party states ruled by dictators for life!"

When Mandela was freed last February, he immediately called for the nationalization of business and industry. This is what destroyed the economies of these other nations. He made his demands standing before a communist flag while saluting South African Communist Party Chairman Joe Slovo. Clearly, Mandela's intentions are to create economic ruin, political repression and the destruction of civil liberties.

I do not condone or support apartheid in South Africa or anywhere else. I do contend that conditions for blacks in South Africa are far superior to those of other blacks anywhere else in Africa. Refugees from supposedly "liberated" nations to the north continue to pour into South Africa, where they are far better off.

Mandela's past includes guerrila warfare and terrorism, neither of which he has renounced. He has regularly appeared with his wife, Winnie, who publicly endorces the horrible crime of "necklacing."

Inviting Mandela to our nation signals to the rest of the world, and even to revolutionaries within our nation, that terrorism brings results. God forbid that we live to see it develop here.

GEORGE KELLY\ BEDFORD

by CNB