Ex-terrorist Leads RSA Defense Force

South Africa continues to thumb its nose at the civilized world. On June 1, President Mandela formalized the appointment of the country’s new chief of the National Defense Force. In a move as paradoxical as the appointment of former-terrorist Mandela to the chief executive office of this once great country, the President has appointed ex-terrorist chief of staff of Umkhonto we Sizwe (the military wing of the African National Congress), Lieutenant-General Siphiwe Nyanda, to the rainbow republic’s top military post. This latest appointment within the four year old ANC/SACP majority government in South Africa is a stab in the heart for the countless widows and orphans of a multitude of Zulu Inkatha Freedom Party members slaughtered under Nyanda’s command in his former terrorist role. South African whites view this most recent political appointment with a deepening sense of foreboding in relation to any prospect of national reconciliation between the country’s black, white and colored populace. With every such appointment by the Mandela government, the inevitable isolation of South Africa’s white minority becomes more of a prospect.