A bit of clarification, there was indeed solidarity between the ANC and the IRA as well as the INLA. Where do you get your information that the ANC did not support Irish Republicanism? In point of fact, a number of IRA and INLA volunteers I knew through my work as a civil rights activist - though they supported fully the goals of the ANC, were quite frim that their support was tempered by the practice of "neclacing" which they concidered to be an example of a war crime and begged American supporters of the ANC to attempt to get the ANC to abandon that practice. Necklacing was the paractice of filling a tire with gasoline, tieing it around someone's neck and burning them alive. I pass on this information, in support of the ANC's goals, while being committedly opposed to that practice, and where it not for the laudable goal of the truth and reconcilliation process, would call for prosicutions for that practice while demanding prosicution of the murderers of Stephen Biko. But, the process proposed by Bishop Tutu breaks the tradition of politic of the last outrage, and I heartly endorce it for Ireland. I'd even give old Conrad the peasant a handshake and a toast if he'd be polite. It is time to understand the past from each other's point of view and build a new future (a socalist Ireland would not be bad either!)
Slan, Larry