His reaction to US opposition to the visit, and those of his somnolent Foreign Minister, Alfred Nzo, suggest that these two old men are woefully out of touch with late 20th century reality. Mandela accused Washington of arrogance for dictating "where we should go or who our friends should be". Nzo called for an end to UN sanctions against Libya.

On October 21, the Johannesburg MAIL & GUARDIAN newspaper published letters on its Internet edition from Libyan exiles, deploring Mandela's decision to visit. One wrote: "I simply cannot believe that it is too much to ask of you what you have asked the world to do in the recent past: boycott tyranny and oppression."

Another called the visit "an insult to Libyan martyrs who have been hanged publicly by [Muammar] Gaddafi and left to rot in public squares for days; to the families of Libyans whose bodies were dug up by his thugs and thrown to the sea for opposing him during their life; and to the thousands of Libyans who are still in the jails of this tyrant, subjected to torture on a daily basis for asking nothing more than what you and the people of South Africa have asked for: to breathe free in our own land."

The reaction of these dissidents -- shock at Mandela's apparent blindness to the irony of his stance -- is not new. Many South Africans with a deep love both for our country and for this one share their concerns.

To many of us who grew up in the shadow of apartheid, Mandela in his prison cell were a constant reminder of a future, better South Africa which we, too, could work towards. But our joy at the transition when it occurred was tempered by profound misgivings about the close relations between the ANC and the likes of Libya, Iran and the PLO.

We hoped the ANC's ties with such dubious allies of the exiled organisation would diminish once Mandela assumed power, but that did not happen. His loyalty to old friends appears to have blinded him to a cold assessment of the damage done to his reputation by images of him embracing Yasser Arafat and Gaddafi.

Pretoria's shifting policy on the Middle East is cause for deep misgiving. A case in point was last year's agreement to store Iranian oil, flying in the face of American appeals for sanctions against Tehran. (The deal was since aborted, reportedly for reasons unrelated to US pressure.)

Even more disturbing was the admission by former Energy Affairs Minister, Pik Botha, that nuclear cooperation between the two countries was on the agenda during his visit to Tehran early last year. Botha told the writer he had "met with representatives of Iran's nuclear research industry", whom he said were "engaged in research and the peaceful application of nuclear power".

Yet Iran's attempts to buy nuclear know-how from China, North Korea and former Soviet republics have triggered alarms among intelligence services around the world. In the light of this, Botha's insistence in response to my queries that "under no circumstances will South Africa become involved in any form of cooperation in violation of its obligations and responsibilities in terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty" sounded naive at best -- if not downright untrue.

If Mandela is unaware of the involvement in terrorism of Tripoli and Tehran, he is clearly not being properly advised by Nzo (who was himself warmly received in Tehran in October 1994).

When it comes to Arafat, one wonders what Mandela sees to talk about with a man not just with a history of personal responsibility for terrorism, but who even now oversees a security force which kidnaps, tortures and kills opponents in the areas under his authority. At a time when South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission is hearing gruesome evidence of "dirty tricks" activities carried out by operatives of the apartheid state, doesn't it strike Mandela as ironic that his government's foreign policy transforms the perpetrators of similar crimes into diplomatic and trading partners?

Should he ever decide indeed to visit Israel, Mandela will have to bear in mind that, by legitimising the tyrants in Tripoli, Gaza and Tehran, he has relinquished any right to advise Israelis on matters which could affect the very survival of the Jewish state.
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