US law to destigmatise Mandela, other freedom fighters

"It is shameful that the United States still treats the ANC this way based solely on its designation as a terrorist organisation by the old Apartheid South African regime," Berman said. "Amazingly, Nelson Mandela still needs to get a special waiver to enter the United States based on his courageous leadership of the ANC. What an indignity. This legislation will wipe it away."

The South African Apartheid regime banned the ANC in 1960; its leaders were imprisoned or forced into exile. But with the end of Apartheid, the ANC went on in 1994 to lead a multiracial, multiparty government, and it continues to be the leading political party in the post-Apartheid, democratic South Africa.