Winnie Mandela (42 page)

Verryn's unofficial housekeeper was Xoliswa Falati, one of Winnie's acquaintances and a regular visitor to her house. Falati told Winnie that Verryn was a homosexual and was sexually abusing boys living at the manse. She also alleged that Stompie was a police spy.

On 28 December, Stompie, Kgase, Mono and Mekgwe were taken to Winnie's house by members of Mandela United, severely beaten and held captive. The following evening, Stompie was beaten again, while Jerry Richardson took Kenneth, Thabisa and Pelo, along with Lerotodi Ikaneng, to a deserted stretch of veld and ordered Stompie's three friends to kill Ikaneng. They slit his throat and left him for dead, but, miraculously, he survived.

After repeated attacks on Stompie, Katiza Cebekhulu, one of the club members who took part in the assaults, had an anxiety attack, and Winnie took him to the surgery of her old friend Dr Abu-Baker Asvat, whose nurse was Walter Sisulu's wife, Albertina. By New Year's Day Stompie Seipei was vomiting and couldn't eat, and Dr Asvat was called to the house to examine him. He found that Stompie had sustained permanent brain damage.

When Stompie and his friends had not returned to the Methodist manse after
being abducted, other youths reported the matter to the Mandela Crisis Committee. On 4 January, Aubrey Mokoena, a member of the committee, went to Winnie's house to enquire about the boys, but she denied that they were there. Two days later, Dr Nthatho Motlana went to see Winnie and she admitted that the boys
were
there, but refused to let him see them.

Later that day, a woman came across the body of a teenage boy on the outskirts of Soweto. He had three stab wounds in the neck. It would be more than a month before the body was identified as that of Stompie Seipei.

In the early hours of 7 January, Kenneth Kgase escaped from Winnie's house and contacted Paul Verryn, who took him first to a doctor and then to his friend Geoff Budlender, a lawyer. Kgase made a statement about the abductions and assaults carried out by the Mandela United Football Club, but no one contacted the police. Those who were opposed to apartheid saw the police as the enemy and were, as were people in the townships, generally loath to contact them.

On 11 January, members of the Mandela Crisis Committee and the Methodist bishop, Peter Storey, went to Winnie's house. She said that the boys who had gone missing from the manse were there, but that they had come of their own free will and that she was protecting them against further abuse by Verryn. When committee members asked to see them, she told them to come back the next day.

Instead of going to the police, the influential and respected community leaders simply left, and sent a report to Oliver Tambo in Lusaka, outlining the situation and complaining that Winnie was being obstinate. When they returned the following day, Winnie wasn't home, and Zindzi told them that one of the boys had ‘escaped'. When they saw Mono, Mekgwe and Katiza Cebekhulu, they noticed that Mono and Mekgwe had fresh wounds. They spoke briefly to the boys, then left again, and still took no further action. On 14 January, Frank Chikane wrote to Mandela and begged him to intervene.

The Methodist Church sought legal advice and was told they could get an interdict against Winnie to prevent further violence against the youths. However, the members of the Crisis Committee, concerned about the effect of negative publicity on the ANC, were not prepared to testify against her. Finally, on Monday 16 January, the boys were released, and that evening a meeting was convened in Dobsonville, where some 150 community leaders and the Crisis Committee discussed the situation. Katiza Cebekhulu had been brought to the meeting, and he told them Stompie was dead. Lerotodi Ikaneng told them of the attempt to kill him, and the fresh scar across his throat spoke louder than any words.

On Friday 27 January, Dr Asvat was murdered in his surgery by two young men posing as patients. Albertina Sisulu heard a gunshot, heard Asvat scream and saw two youths run out of the consulting room. Cyril Mbatha and Nicholas Dlamini were subsequently convicted of the murder.

Earlier that morning, the
Weekly Mail
had carried a report about the meeting in Dobsonville, and the name of Stompie Seipei was first brought to South Africa's attention. Combined with Asvat's murder, the media realised there was a major story in the making, and began tracking down the rumours that had been running rife in Soweto for months. On 12 February, the
Sunday Star
reported that Winnie had been linked to Stompie's beating. Two days later, his body was identified, and the police opened a murder investigation. Statements by Mono, Kgase and Mekgwe implicated Winnie, Jerry Richardson and Jabu Sithole, and the two men were arrested, along with Xoliswa Falati, her daughter Nomphumelelo and Winnie's driver, John Morgan.

On 16 February, Murphy Morobe, publicity secretary of the Mass Democratic Movement (which had replaced the UDF) called a media conference and read a statement expressing outrage at Winnie's complicity in the abduction and assault of Stompie Seipei who, he said, would have been alive if he and the three other boys had not been abducted by the Mandela United Football Club. The MDM was not prepared to remain silent to protect people who violated human rights in the name of the struggle against apartheid, said Morobe. Oliver Tambo also issued a statement from exile in which he chastised Winnie, though his criticism was more restrained. He expressed sadness at having to voice his reservations about her judgement regarding the football club.

Winnie's supporters in Soweto sprang to her defence, declaring her the victim of a vicious smear campaign, most likely orchestrated by her perpetual enemies, the security police.

By April, with Stompie's murder still under investigation, Winnie was bumped off the front pages by speculation that her husband's release was imminent. But there was a major stumbling block: the government insisted that the ANC would first have to renounce the armed struggle, sever ties with the South African Communist Party and abandon the principle of majority rule. Mandela refused, making it clear that only an unconditional release would be accepted.

Oliver Tambo had declared 1989 the ‘Year of Mass Action for People's Power', and political protest became more vigorous, even as PW Botha was losing his grip on the National Party's forty-year domination of South Africa. To all intents, Mandela's position had already become that of a man under house arrest, albeit within the confines of a state prison. He was allowed to receive scores of visitors, and on his seventy-first birthday in July, almost every member of his family was present, along with some of his oldest comrades, who were brought from Pollsmoor for the celebrations. Behind the scenes, Oliver Tambo was shuttling between Lusaka, Europe and America to muster international support for the ANC, and working tirelessly to convince the organisation that it should endorse Mandela's private talks with the apartheid government.

In one of his last notable acts as head of state, PW Botha finally held a secret meeting with Mandela. Barely a month later, he was forced to resign by his own cabinet, and was succeeded by the more moderate FW de Klerk. On 10 October, the new president announced that Walter Sisulu, Raymond Mhlaba, Ahmed Kathrada, Andrew Mlangeni, Elias Motsoaledi, Jeff Masemola, Wilton Mkwayi and Oscar Mpetha were to be unconditionally released. Five days later, the only senior ANC leader still behind bars was Nelson Mandela.

On 13 December 1989, the world's most famous prisoner was driven to Tuynhuys, official Cape Town residence of South Africa's president, to meet De Klerk. Within six weeks, Africa's last white tribe would sound the death knell of apartheid.

A
S 1990 DAWNED
, excitement about Mandela’s release reached fever pitch. After visiting him on 8 January, Winnie told the media: ‘I don’t think we are talking about months … this is the real thing.’ At the end of the month, she indicated that there were still problems to be solved regarding the unbanning of the ANC, so it was hardly surprising that South Africans on all sides of the political playing field were stunned when FW de Klerk used the opening of parliament on 2 February to demolish forty-two years of apartheid in less than an hour.

In the time it took for the president to deliver his historic speech, the old South Africa became the new South Africa. The ANC and thirty-one other organisations were unbanned. Political prisoners who had not committed violent crimes would be freed. The execution of prisoners on Death Row was suspended.

And Nelson Mandela was to be unconditionally released.

Overnight, symbols, sentiments and individuals that had been hidden in deep shadow for decades became visible everywhere. The ANC flag was hoisted by jubilant supporters, along with the Communist Party’s distinctive red flag bearing the hammer and sickle that had personified white South Africa’s greatest fears and had been used to justify sending tens of thousands of its young men to war. In townships and streets all over the country, those who had toyi-toyied in anger the week before now danced in celebration.

But as South Africans of all population groups tried to digest the full meaning of the government’s bold move, the world held its breath for an expected backlash against whites. Conservative Namibians who had been preparing to trek across the border and escape life under SWAPO, the former enemy and newly elected government of the neighbouring state, unpacked their bags and took down the ‘For Sale’ signs outside their houses. Former Rhodesians, who had moved south when majority rule came to Zimbabwe, dusted off their passports and began readying themselves to follow the sun to Australia.

A week after the dramatic announcement, De Klerk summoned Mandela to his office, and told him he would be released in Johannesburg the next day. Mandela stubbornly refused, and said he wanted time for the ANC to prepare his
reception, as chaos would erupt if he simply walked out of prison unannounced. He also wanted to be released at Victor Verster, and Winnie had to be present. It was precisely because the government did not want to give the ANC time to organise mass demonstrations and rallies that it had decided to give Mandela so little advance warning of his release date, and there was a tense stand-off between the incumbent and future presidents of South Africa. Eventually, they reached a compromise: Mandela would walk out of the main gates at Victor Verster Prison in Paarl, with Winnie at his side, at 3 pm the next day.

In anticipation of this momentous event, the ANC had already appointed a national reception committee, but in the end they had less than fifteen hours to arrange Nelson Mandela’s first public appearance as a free man after more than twenty-seven years.

While Mandela, his lawyers and political advisers worked on his speech, arrangements were hastily made for a top-level ANC delegation, headed by Winnie and Walter Sisulu, to fly to Cape Town on the Sunday morning. The flight was delayed – in Warrant Officer James Gregory’s opinion, deliberately, to give the ANC a little more time to put adequate security for Mandela in place – and by the time Winnie arrived at the prison gate, hundreds of thousands of people had gathered outside and along the route they would take to Cape Town.

In the mid-1980s, Winnie had said of her marriage to Nelson: ‘I had so little time to love him, and that love has survived all these years of separation.’
¹
Now, just minutes away from reclaiming her position at his side while the whole world watched, her excitement knew no bounds. She jumped from her car and ran ahead of the others to the house where Madiba was waiting.

At 4 pm on 11 February 1990, Nelson and Winnie Mandela walked hand in hand into the future. He was genuinely astonished at the scene that awaited them. He had expected a few warders and some journalists, not thousands of well-wishers and hundreds of newspaper, radio and television reporters from every corner of the globe. It was an overwhelming introduction to the media circus that would henceforth follow his every step, and he was momentarily taken aback by all the fuss. But he recovered quickly, and when he raised his right arm in the Black Power salute, the roar of the crowd was deafening.

Winnie was radiant, triumphant, and the cheers were as much for her as for Madiba.

In the heart of Cape Town, hundreds of thousands of people had gathered at the Grand Parade opposite the City Hall, from which Mandela would make his first public address. The sun was setting as he appeared on the balcony overlooking the historic market square, raised his fist and shouted
‘Amandla!’
The city bowl reverberated to the mass response,
‘Ngawethu!’
Then Mandela shouted ‘
iAfrika!’
and the crowd roared back:
‘Mayibuye!’
When he removed the pages of his speech from his jacket pocket, he realised that he had left his reading glasses at the prison, and had to borrow Winnie’s. It was a small incident, but rich with symbolism: he would read his first words as a free man through both their eyes.

But, although he paid tribute by name to a long list of friends and colleagues for their support and contribution to the struggle over the years, he did not single Winnie out. In fact, his only reference to her was an oblique one, when he expressed ‘deep appreciation for the strength given to me during my long and lonely years in prison by my beloved wife and family’, and added: ‘I am convinced that your pain and suffering was far greater than my own.’

Two days later, after addressing 120 000 people at the First National Bank Stadium in Soweto, Mandela went home to house No. 8115, Orlando West, for the first time in thirty years. The house had been restored after the fire, and an ANC flag was flying proudly outside. The first weeks after his release passed in a blur of visitors, meetings and interviews, and there was no question of Nelson and Winnie taking time off to put their personal life back together. He was reluctant to move to the Diepkloof mansion, saying it was an inappropriate abode for a leader of the people, and that he wanted to live not just among his people, but like them. In all likelihood, he was sincere, but the remark was nevertheless construed as a thinly veiled rebuke for Winnie’s chosen lifestyle. However, with the black cloud of Stompie Seipei’s murder and events surrounding the Mandela United Football Club still hovering, he staunchly defended Winnie against all negative criticism. According to his closest friends, he could never allow himself to forget that Winnie had kept the struggle alive through even the darkest days, and had borne the brunt of the government’s attacks in his absence. Some said he knew she had made serious mistakes, and even suspected she was guilty of some of the allegations against her, while others said he never questioned her innocence. Either way, he remained loyal to her, and expected his friends to do the same – at least until she was convicted.