The anti-Apartheid Struggle and Republicans

( I am NOT Bernadette Devlin-McAliskey NOR am I connected to her in any way. I discuss naming it after her in the "notes" post)

I have mentioned Apartheid S. Africa several times on my blog in some connection to the Republican Movement. I've been aware of four connections between the two groups in recent decades, and a couple more connections between the two have just surfaced, which I’ll get to soon (I'm not sure they are as confirmed as I would like them, but the source for the new info seems like a good source).

First, here are the four connections I’ve been aware of for some number of years

1) A plaque remembering the sacrifice of both anti-Apartheid and Irish Republican Prisoners of war, is on Robben Island, which is kind of a monument to the anti-Apartheid struggle. That info was found here.

2) In 1981, as IRA (and INLA) prisoners went on hunger-strike, there was talk among ANC Prisoners of War of going on a solidarity hunger-strike. That's taken from an on-line only article in The Nation, by Tom Hayden- it was published some time in 2004, or 2005, or 2006. I can't find it online. When I do I'll update this.

3) In 2005 the Minister of Intelligence for South Africa visited Ireland and compared what he did as a member of the ANC's military wing during the anti-Apartheid struggle with what IRA members did during the Troubles. You can read at least a little of an Irish Times article about this here. If all you read there is the brief free paragraph, reading this from a Sinn Fein publication will make it clear what the Minister meant with his comments in that brief intro of the Irish Times article.

4) In 1992 Nelson Mandela was on a British political talk-show and said that he supported the IRA. That information is found here (it's towards the bottom, says "mandela. and. ira").


There are some more pieces of information about this relationship. Those are found here, here, and here.

Tom