US President George W Bush has signed a law that removes restrictions on Nelson Mandela and other members of the African National Congress to travel to the United States, the White House said Tuesday, according to dpa. The move banishes an outmoded measure that prohibited Mandela from visiting unless the secretary of state affirmed he was not connected to terrorism or other criminal activities. The ANC was put on the US government's terrorism watch list during the Cold War in the 1980s over concerns it had communist ties and because it had been designated as a terrorist organization by the apartheid South African government. The US Congress earlier this year passed the bill that removed the ANC from its list of terrorist organizations. Mandela spent 27 years in prison as the leading opponent of apartheid in South Africa before his release in 1990. He became South Africa's first president in the post-apartheid era and has regularly visited the United States. Mandela is a Nobel Peace Prize laurate and is recognized globally as a hero for his struggle against apartheid. Mandela's successor, President Thabo Mbeki, and other ANC officials have visited the United States once receiving a waiver under the restrictions. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Congress in April that the limitations were "embarrassing" and needed to end. "It is frankly a rather embarrassing matter that I still have to waive in my own counterparts - the foreign minister of South Africa, not to mention the great leader, Nelson Mandela," Rice said. Mandela began celebrating his upcoming 90th birthday in London last week, where he indicated he would not likely travel abroad again from southern Africa.
