re: Why can’t people admit that Nelson Mandela was a terrorist?

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It is what it is...the guy was in charge of thousands of people willing to kill other people.

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And yet the ANC wanted to avoid a direct civil war, and decided through sabotage they could minimize casualties and turn the tide against the National Party. Civil war was a more likely outcome than 25 more years of National Party rule (til 1987, when Mandela began negotiations with one of the secretaries of the government), yet mass violence was avoided. I don't think I can understate how precarious the situation was. Similar post-colonial situations, like in Algeria, ended in a long war, bitter bloodshed, and caused bitterness against Algerian in France, even the Harkis, who were Algerians who fought with the French.

And again, I haven't found evidence that Mandela was leading MK during its hey day of terrorist activity, in the 80s, after the Soweto massacre, as he was in jail. That nuance seems lost on people, as Mandela was in charge of the organization in the initial round of bombings but was arrested with the help of an American diplomat in 1962. I can't find the casualties numbers during those bombings, the Dingane's Day bombings and New Years Eve bombings in 1961. Mandela was most definitely not involved in MK's later miltancy with the Zimbabwe's People's Revolutionary Army, nor was he involved with the final stage of ANC militancy, in Rhodesia, where they were finally able to hit targets like refineries, one such with the help of the IRA.

And rarely if ever do I hear condemnations of Hendrik Verwoerd, the prime minister of South Africa at the time of the Sharpsville massacre, under whom Apartheid grew worse, and under whom two different organizations, the ANC and the PAC, decided to adopt militancy. Had he, or the government at large, not been so careless with human life, as the argument is with Mandela, then would the ANC, an organization who was committed to non-violence modeled by Gandhi, would never militarized, at least not in 1960. That the Apartheid government was so authoritarian while ostensibly proclaiming themselves a liberal democracy, then maybe the militancy would not have happened.

Regardless, I'm finding scant evidence that Mandela was a ruthless killer on the level of Khan, Hannibal or Patton. Could you please provide me some evidence, since you are so convinced that Mandela is a killer, of the causality rate from the initial set of bombings from when Mandela was directly in control of the MK, and not in the 1980s when Mandela was in jail?