Following his release from prison in February 1990, South Africa's 1st President Nelson Mandela famously embraced Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman, Yasser Arafat in Lusaka, Zambia. He and his political party, the African National Congress (ANC), had long supported Palestinian statehood; comparing the Israeli occupation in Gaza and the West Bank to South Africa's Apartheid, which barred Black South Africans from voting, owning land, and living outside of ethnically segregated areas called "Homelands."