Winnie Mandela (19 page)

Just hours before newspaper headlines around the world shrieked that the Black Pimpernel had been captured, one of Nelson’s friends went to Winnie’s office at the Child Welfare Society. He looked terrible, his face pale and unshaven, his hair tousled. She knew immediately that something was wrong, and fearing that Nelson might have been shot trying to avoid capture at a police roadblock, all she could ask was: ‘Is he all right?’ The man replied, ‘No, we think he’ll be appearing in the Johannesburg court tomorrow.’

She was stunned. In that moment, Winnie felt the full impact of a political dream’s collapse. Nelson was lost, not only to her and his children, but to the struggle, to the cause of their people – at the height of his career.

She could never remember how she got home that day, but she knew that her life would never be the same again. In later years, she said that when he was captured, part of her soul went with him.

Winnie had married Nelson Mandela on 14 June 1958, and he had gone underground in April 1961. By the time he was arrested, they had been married a few months longer than four years, but between the Treason Trial, the five months he
had spent in prison during the state of emergency and his life on the run, they had shared a home life for just more than two years.

Some people within the ANC suspected GR Naidoo of tipping off the police, but there was never any proof that anyone betrayed Mandela, and he himself dismissed all speculation of a traitor. Walter Sisulu, Duma Nokwe, Joe Slovo, Ahmed Kathrada, even Winnie herself, discounted rumours of betrayal from within the ANC as mischief-making by the government, designed to cause a rift in the organisation.

O
N 7 AUGUST 1962
, Nelson Mandela was charged with inciting black workers to strike and leaving the country without valid travel documents.

In the spectators’ gallery at the Johannesburg magistrate’s court, Winnie was clearly distressed. She knew that he would go to prison, and that whatever hope of a return to normality she might have fostered during the seventeen months he was a fugitive had been smashed. Difficult months, possibly years, lay ahead, and somehow she would have to manage on her own, with two small children to raise. After years of expecting it to happen, the sword of Damocles had finally dropped.

As Mandela left the courtroom, he smiled at her brightly, reassuringly. She knew he was trying to put on a brave face, and when she was allowed to visit him a few days later, she, too, tried to hide her fears, and took extra care with her appearance. Either because she wasn’t yet thinking straight after the shock of his arrest, or in defiance of the dire situation in which he found himself, she took him a gift of new, expensive pyjamas and a silk dressing gown. The clothing was wholly unsuitable for prison, and Nelson knew he could never wear the garments, but he expressed his gratitude because he knew she had wanted to show her love. They talked about family matters and how she would support herself and the children. Mandela named friends who would help her, and told her about clients who still owed him legal fees. The most painful decision was what to tell the children, and Mandela insisted that it be the truth, and asked her to explain that he would probably be gone for a long time.

He did his best to comfort her, pointing out that they were not the first family to face such a predicament. He gently reminded her that he would need her support more than ever, and that their cause was just, but that it demanded personal sacrifice. The officer on duty turned a blind eye and allowed them to embrace, and they clung to one another, even though they had no idea that it would be more than a quarter of a century before they would hold one another again. The kindly officer allowed Nelson to accompany Winnie part of the way to the main gate, and he watched her until she disappeared around a corner, alone, but with her head held high.

Although Mandela’s arrest was a shock, he, Winnie and the ANC leaders had all known that it was inevitable. In September, Winnie wrote to Adelaide Tambo in London that it had nevertheless come as a grievous blow ‘at the wrong time’, and reminded her how important it was for Oliver and the ANC’s external wing to muster as much support for Nelson as possible. Winnie understood the political climate well enough to realise that Nelson might be in jail for some years, and Bram Fischer, who was both Nelson’s attorney and friend, along with other supporters, urged her to leave the country and study abroad. But, like Mandela, she refused, believing that her place was with her people, and making it clear that she would not desert the man she loved. She was well aware, though, that there were certain people within the ANC – to say nothing of the security police – who would welcome her departure.

Shortly after Nelson’s arrest, Winnie was summoned to the Transkei for a meeting with the tribal elders at his home. She thought they wanted to discuss the situation with her, but was appalled to learn that they actually wanted her to consult a witch doctor and take part in rituals they believed would save Mandela from imprisonment. Winnie’s upbringing and her mother’s staunch resistance to tribal worship drove her to refuse. Later, she regretted not going along with the plan, which would have made no difference to the outcome, but would have appeased those close to Mandela. She realised too late, she said, how deeply she had offended family members to whom traditional rituals meant a great deal, and had perhaps been too scared that, by participating, she might fuel the fires of bigots who proclaimed that blacks were uncivilised and thus unfit to run the country.

The first time Winnie was invited to stand in for Mandela at a political event was at the Indian Youth Congress’s annual conference. Wearing a yellow sari and a garland of yellow carnations, she used her opening speech to repudiate rumours that an ANC comrade had betrayed Mandela. On his behalf, she stated emphatically that the organisation would not waste time conducting an internal witch-hunt, since the government clearly hoped its propaganda would lead to dissent in the ranks and a weakening of opposition to its policies. The press reported more on her beauty and eloquence than the substance of her speech, but the 250 delegates elected Mandela their honorary president. Afterwards, Winnie went to the Fort to see Mandela, who was not only delighted to see her looking wonderful, but elated when she told him how well she had been received.

Nelson had often warned Winnie to beware of opportunists and informers, and she was about to experience at first-hand the danger of taking people at face value. At the Fort, Mandela had run into an old acquaintance, Moosa Dinath, a successful businessman and Transvaal Indian Congress member, who had been imprisoned for fraud. Mandela had mentioned to Winnie that Dinath, whom he had earlier introduced to her, was at the Fort, but what he didn’t tell her was
that he found it strange that a prisoner convicted for a non-political offence was allowed to spend a great deal of time with him, or that he had become aware that Dinath was allowed to spend whole nights outside the prison, with the acquiescence of the chief warder, Colonel Minnaar.

Dinath had married a white woman in the Mozambican capital of Lourenço Marques (now Maputo), but she still went by her maiden name of Maude Katzenellenbogen. In due course, Maude introduced herself to Winnie and invited her to her home, a rundown house within walking distance of the Fort. They were roughly the same age, both had young children and a husband behind bars, and became good friends. Maude gave Winnie a welcome cheque for £4, as well as groceries and clothes for the children at a time when she was in need of assistance. She also told Winnie there was no need for her to take food to Nelson, as she lived so close to the prison that she would happily do so.

So when Winnie got a message that Dinath wanted to see her, she had no reason to be suspicious, though she was surprised when she was taken to an office rather than the visitors’ area. Dinath immediately assured her that nothing had happened to Mandela, as she feared. A senior officer, who was his friend, was present as proof that he approved of the proposal he was about to make, Dinath said. He would allow Mandela to ‘escape’ from the Fort, in exchange for a cash payment of £600 – but the plan would have to be carried out as soon as possible, in case the authorities decided to transfer Mandela to another facility. Would Winnie be able to raise the money?

Winnie was both surprised and apprehensive, and realised that Dinath expected her to ask the ANC for the money. She said she thought this could be done, and Dinath explained that as soon as the money was paid, he would provide Mandela with a saw to cut through the bars of his cell. He would also be given a firearm, and allowed to leave the prison without being stopped. The plan was foolproof, said Dinath, but the full amount had to be paid in advance.

Winnie’s blood ran cold. Neither Moosa nor the warder seemed to think she would find it odd that Nelson was to be given a saw, when the door of his cell was to be unlocked in any event. Instinctively, she realised that this was a trap, and that far from allowing Mandela to walk out of the Fort, the authorities planned to kill him, and would defend their action by citing an armed escape. She was also confused. She viewed Dinath as a friend, and Mandela had said nothing to make her believe otherwise, but she hid her feelings and indicated that she was willing to go along with the plan. After a sleepless night she reported the conversation to Walter Sisulu, who agreed that it was most likely a trap, and told her he would deal with the matter. But he advised Winnie not to go back to the Fort. She obeyed, and heard no more of the plan, assuming that Dinath had been manipulated or terrorised by the authorities into making the offer. No one in the
ANC ever told her whether this was the case or not, and her friendship with Maude continued. In years to come, Winnie would be betrayed time and again by people she trusted, and her gullibility would cause her great sorrow and disappointment.

The weekend before his trial began on 15 October, Mandela was suddenly transferred to Pretoria. His lawyers objected in vain, and the ANC, which was organising ‘Free Mandela’ protests, realised that the government was hoping the last-minute change of venue would prevent courthouse demonstrations. Walter Sisulu had also been charged with incitement, but he and Mandela would be tried separately, one in Pretoria, the other in Johannesburg. It made little difference to the ANC supporters, though, who turned out in large numbers at both trials.

Winnie made a striking entrance into the Pretoria courtroom, clad from head to foot in the distinctive national costume of the royal Tembu line: a beaded headdress and ankle-length skirt. Mandela, too, caused great excitement when he entered the dock wearing a lion skin, the traditional garb of a chief, which had been a gift from his paramount chief. As he raised a clenched fist and cried
‘Amandla!’
[power], everyone in the public gallery, including the media, rose to their feet. The authorities were infuriated by this naked display of African pride, and afterwards tried to confiscate Mandela’s
karos
[animal skin], but backed off when he threatened them with legal action. Determined to make someone pay for the impact of this defiance, the Minister of Justice served Winnie with notice that she would be barred from the courtroom if she continued to wear tribal dress. Since she had no intention of being locked out of her husband’s trial, Winnie complied, but every day she wore an outfit in the colours of the ANC – black for the people, green for the land, and yellow for the gold riches of the country – or one of the colourful outfits Nelson had brought her from the African states he had visited. Hundreds of other black women, however, continued to wear their own traditional outfits to court in solidarity with Winnie.

Members of Madiba’s clan led a strong show of support, and outside the court a praise singer lauded the Tembu people’s opposition to injustice and narrated Mandela’s genealogy. When supporters outside sang ‘Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika’ and ‘Chuchaliza Mandela’ [Advance Mandela], the police warned them that they were violating an order that banned meetings in support of the ANC and Mandela, and gave them five minutes to disperse. But ANC officials quietened the crowd and persuaded those who could not gain entry to the packed courtroom to wait quietly and patiently outside.

Mandela conducted his own defence, neither calling any witnesses nor contesting the charges, though he placed on record that he did not consider himself guilty of any crime. It was with a heavy heart that Winnie heard her husband tell the court: ‘It has not been easy for me during the past period to separate myself
from my wife and children, to say goodbye to the good old days when, at the end of a strenuous day at the office, I could look forward to joining my family at the dinner table, and instead take up the life of a man hunted continually by the police, living separated from those who are closest to me, in my own country facing continually the hazards of detection and arrest. But there comes a time, as it came in my life, when a man is denied the right to live a normal life, when he can only live the life of an outlaw, because the government has so decreed to use the law to impose a state of outlawry on him. I was driven to this situation and I do not regret having taken the decisions that I did.’

The prosecutor, PJ Bosch, laid out the state’s case: Mandela had spoken illegally at the conference in Pietermaritzburg; organised protests against South Africa becoming a republic; incited workers to go on strike, with the result that tens of thousands of people had not gone to work from 29 to 31 May; and he had left the country illegally and travelled to foreign states.

Prior to the verdict being handed down, Nelson was allowed two visits a week. Winnie, despite the distance and difficulties involved in taking time off work to go to Pretoria, made the trip as often as possible, taking him food, books and clean clothes. But she was not allowed to take the children to see him.

On 6 November, the day before Mandela was to be sentenced, the United Nations voted for the first time to impose sanctions against South Africa as punishment for its continued apartheid policies. In Washington and Moscow, the Cuban missile crisis threatened to plunge the world into nuclear war, but in Pretoria, police armed with tear gas were concerned only with cordoning off the area in front of the court and limiting the number of people allowed inside. Winnie sat with Mandela’s aunt and other relatives from the Transkei, and showed nothing of her trepidation as she heard her husband sentenced to a total of five years in prison, with hard labour and no possibility of parole: three years for incitement to strike, two for leaving the country without travel documents.