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By Their Friends, Shall Ye Know Them
21 February 2011
ILuvSA
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Gaddafi Gives Anc Millions: Report
[30 May 1999, Sapa] Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi has donated millions of pounds to a "secret election campaign fund" run by President Nelson Mandela to allow the African National Congress to win the June 2 election, the British Sunday Telegraph reported on Sunday.
According to SABC radio news reports, figures compiled by Greg Mills of the South African Institute for International Affairs revealed that the ANC had received more than 112 million pounds in overseas funding from what Mills said was "questionable sources".
ANC spokesman Smuts Ngonyama dismissed the Telegraph report as a "smear campaign" against the ANC and "whoever is making the claims... has got a sinister motive".
The ANC could not say whether it had received money from Gaddafi or not, but there was nothing wrong if it had. "Like all other political parties, the ANC receives donations," Ngonyama said.
Parties such as the Democratic Party and the United Democratic Movement received funds from "countries such as the United States, but no-one has ever queried this", he said.
The Sunday Telegraph report was a "continuation of the British media trying to choose friends for the ANC", Smuts said.
Excerpt from a Mandela speech.
 Libya: Benghazi Protestors shot by Gaddafi's Snipers & Mercenaries |
“It was pure expediency to call on democratic South Africa to turn its back on Libya and Qaddafi, who had assisted us in obtaining democracy at a time when those who now made that call were the friends of the enemies of democracy in South Africa.
Had we heeded those demands, we would have betrayed the very values and attitudes that allowed us as a nation to have adversaries sitting down and negotiating in a spirit of compromise. It would have meant denying that the South African experience could be a model and example for international behaviour.
In many ways, our modest contribution to resolving the Lockerbie issue will remain a highlight of the international aspects of our Presidency. No one can deny that the friendship and trust between South Africa and Libya played a significant part in arriving at this solution. If that be so, it vindicates our view that talking to one another and searching for peaceful solutions remain the surest way to resolve differences and advance peace and progress in the world.
We look forward with joy and anticipation to the full re-entry of Libya into the affairs of our continent and the world.
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