Winnie Mandela (47 page)

Winnie told the TRC that as a member of the ANC's military wing, she had assisted MK cadres who infiltrated South Africa from neighbouring states. She dismissed all allegations that she had been involved in kidnapping, assault or murder as ludicrous, and said she was astounded by the many fabrications. When the TRC's deputy chairman, Alex Boraine, suggested that the football club had been a good idea that had gone very badly wrong, Winnie agreed, and conceded that, with hindsight, she would have acted differently. But she insisted that she knew nothing of the assaults on Stompie and the other youths, and said she had seen no signs of injury on any of them. Jerry Richardson's claim that she had ordered him to kill Stompie was ‘the worst lunacy', and as far as she was concerned, Katiza Cebekhulu was ‘a mental case', as shown by his allegations that he saw her stabbing Stompie and that she had taken part in the vicious assaults, when Richardson had already admitted to killing Stompie.

The logic of Nicodemus Sono's testimony defied her. Why, she asked, would she assault a boy, take him to his father and then kill him? She admitted she had been in the minibus with Lolo, but said she was taking him on a mission, and that he
had never been assaulted. She had not known Sibuniso Tshababala and denied ever meeting either Dlamini or Mbatha. Her relationship with Dr Asvat had been close, and she was shocked and deeply saddened by his death.

Commissioner Yasmin Sooka observed that if Winnie's version of events was true, everyone else who had testified must have been lying. Winnie agreed, and said only the witnesses themselves would know why they had lied. She expressed sadness for the loss of life, and for the ordeal some of the boys had suffered, but said she had no regrets at all about sheltering and protecting them from the vicious system of the day.

When her testimony finished, Archbishop Tutu made an impassioned plea to Winnie. She had been a stalwart and iconic member of the struggle, who had overcome every effort to break her spirit. She was loved and admired by many, but, said an emotional Tutu, something had gone wrong, and he begged her to admit this and apologise for her part in the consequences.

As he spoke, it was as though Tutu had become oblivious to his surroundings, to the audience, the media and the world. Almost imperceptibly, the cold and impersonal chamber became a shrine, and Tutu implored Winnie to lay a sacrificial offering on the altar of truth. With utmost humility, he entreated: ‘I beg you, I beg you, I beg you please … You are a great person. And you don't know how your greatness would be enhanced if you were to say, I'm sorry … things went wrong. Forgive me. I beg you.'

For endless moments, the packed auditorium was as silent as a chapel. Then Winnie switched on her microphone and spoke into the expectant hush. She thanked Tutu for his wonderful, wise words, saying he was still the father she knew. And then she said: ‘I am saying it is true, things went horribly wrong. I fully agree with that. And for that part of those painful years, when things went horribly wrong – and we were aware of the fact that there were factors that led to that – for that, I am deeply sorry.'

Her words lingered, like incense, in the serene space created by Tutu's forgiveness. She apologised to the families of Stompie Seipei and Dr Abu-Baker Asvat.

The hearings were over. Somewhere in the tangled web of accusations, allegations, retractions and denial lay the truth.

South Africa's bloodstained past is littered with accounts of unbearable hardship and suffering, and thousands of dead: men, women and children, killed by vengeful hands, neglect and hunger. Many who survived made extraordinary sacrifices. One of them was Winnie Madkizela-Mandela, who had left behind a large part of her life in an unmarked grave on apartheid's abstract battlefield.

 

In the wake of the dramatic TRC hearings, the ANC convened in Mafikeng, capital of the former homeland of Bophuthatswana, for its hallmark fiftieth annual conference.
There were 3 500 delegates in the hall, and the entire national executive was seated on stage as Mandela handed over the reins of leadership to Thabo Mbeki. But the eyes of the world were fixed on who would serve as his deputy. The Women's League nominated Winnie for the post – but the TRC hearings had damaged her more than her supporters had realised, and she polled only 127 votes out of 3 500. She was re-elected as a member of the national executive, but dropped from fifth to fifteenth in the ranking order. Her friend Peter Mokaba boldly predicted that she would regain her former status, but few believed him.

During the TRC hearings, suspicion had been cast on Winnie's relationship with the police. Azhar Cachalia had testified that although it was fairly common knowledge in the late 1980s that Winnie was hiding both guerrillas and arms in her house, the police never arrested nor even questioned her about such matters. This had led some members of the community to believe that she had sold out, and was working with the police.

In January 1998, the TRC held a special hearing into the activities of the Soweto security police. Apart from Winnie, it emerged that there were several common threads running through investigations into the disappearance of Lolo Sono and the deaths of Stompie Seipei and Dr Asvat. Henk Heslinga, Fred Dempsey and HT Moodley, members of the murder and robbery squad at the Protea Police Station at the time, had probed all three cases. In all three cases, documents had disappeared and the investigations had been botched, especially in regard to Winnie's alleged involvement.

In Lolo Sono's case, the driver of the minibus, Michael Siyakamela, had made a statement confirming that the severely assaulted youth was sitting in the vehicle with Winnie when she talked to his father. The statement was lost.

When Dr Asvat's alleged killers were arrested, they stated that they had stolen money from his surgery. The Asvat family was adamant that not a cent was missing, and the killers subsequently claimed they had been tortured into claiming that robbery was the motive for the murder.

In the case of Stompie, a police informer had made a statement that Winnie was involved in the assault. The security police removed the statement, and Vlakplaas commander Eugene de Kock killed the informer. Heslinga had served in Koevoet with De Kock.

The case of Themba Mabotha amplified the suggestion that Winnie had become a police agent. He had been an askari at Vlakplaas, and after he escaped he made his way to Winnie's home. Since Mabotha had compelling information about the activities of the hit squads operating from Vlakplaas long before they were exposed in November 1989 by the Afrikaans newspaper
Vrye Weekblad
, the question had to be asked: Why was he not smuggled out of South Africa for debriefing by the ANC's intelligence department?

De Kock made it clear that Winnie's high profile had made her a priority for attention by the security forces. Her attitude and courage infuriated the authorities, he said, and she was regarded as a thorn in their flesh.

Senior Superintendent André Kritzinger, formerly a captain in the Soweto Security Branch, said he had compiled a dossier of some thirty crimes implicating Winnie in the late 1980s, and believed he had enough evidence to charge her with high treason, harbouring terrorists and unlawful possession of firearms. However, Witwatersrand Attorney-General Klaus von Lieres had declined to prosecute her.

While the likelihood was raised that Winnie escaped prosecution due to an official directive from an unidentified source because she had secretly begun collaborating with the police, there was easily as much evidence that the authorities had simply decided to surround her with a phalanx of informers, and leave her be to exploit the increasing possibility of a split in ANC ranks between her supporters and critics.

The police had manipulated Winnie's image for decades. Gordon Winter disclosed in his book
Inside Boss
that the security police began spreading rumours that she was a BOSS spy in the early 1960s. Former security policeman Paul Erasmus told the TRC that there was an ongoing smear campaign against Winnie serious enough to destroy her marriage, and that as late as 1994, disinformation was spread in an attempt to prevent her election as a senior ANC office bearer. A number of British politicians, including Tory members of parliament, had helped disseminate the rumours, said Erasmus.

 

In January 1998, the
Weekend Argus
published an interview with Winnie in which she spoke candidly about a number of personal issues, and reiterated her deep commitment to the liberation struggle. She said the most difficult time in her life had been when she was in jail, but she had always believed it was her responsibility to maintain Nelson Mandela's name and legacy, and to that end she had sacrificed her youth and her freedom. Asked whether it had ever crossed her mind to get a divorce from Mandela, she said no, even though twenty-seven years was a lifetime for a young woman. She had been offered jobs abroad, by the United Nations, among others, and could have fled South Africa many times. But, she said, she had a deep conviction that her main purpose was to remain in the country, for the sake of both Mandela and the cause for which they fought. Her biggest regret was not being able to give their children a normal life. It haunted her, day and night, that she hadn't been there for her daughters.

Throughout the years of political persecution, Winnie often lamented the deprivations her children had to suffer. Thus, it was not surprising that she went to battle in February 1998 to preserve their heritage – not for the sake of politics, but as a family legacy. A dispute had arisen over ownership of house No. 8115 in
Vilakazi Street, Orlando West. The unassuming township street was the only street in the world to boast the homes of two living Nobel Peace Prize laureates, namely Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. However, neither of them lived there any longer. Winnie had turned the Mandela house into a museum, which she opened in December 1997 and which drew up to 1 000 visitors a day. Mandela's daughters, Zeni and Zindzi, were directors of the museum, but the problem was that the house did not belong to Winnie. A year earlier, Mandela – who had originally moved into the house on a ninety-nine-year lease – had donated the property to the Soweto Heritage Trust, along with approval for Winnie's eviction as, he said, he had given the house to the people of South Africa.

For Winnie, however, this was the house to which she had gone as a young bride, where she had brought her newborn daughters, and where she endured years of victimisation, first as Mandela's wife, then as an advocate of political change in South Africa. From here she was sent into exile in Brandfort, and this was the house to which she had dreamed of returning for eight long years.

After fruitless negotiations with Dr Nthato Motlana, Winnie's old friend and chairman of the Trust, she took legal action to prevent her children from being deprived of what she believed was rightfully theirs.

In the upper echelons of the new South Africa, as in the old, there was little empathy for Winnie's wishes and feelings. Yet again, she and her children would have to make a personal sacrifice in order that the nation be served.

P
OLITICAL PUNDITS INTERPRETED
the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s damning indictment of Winnie as a sign that her public life had finally expired. Like both the apartheid authorities and the ANC leadership after them, the commentators misjudged her resilience and popular appeal, though the TRC’s findings unquestionably cast a shadow over her credibility and future conduct as head of the ANC Women’s League and a member of parliament.

Over the years, Winnie received many tributes for her unflinching support of Mandela and the struggle. In the mid-1980s, Lutheran bishop Manas Buthelezi, then president of the South African Council of Churches, said she had suffered and been punished because her life symbolised the striving of black South Africans for justice and liberation, and suggested that Winnie ought to be counted among the heroes who had martyred themselves for their beliefs.

Two days before the twentieth century drew to a close, the Xhosa king, Xolilizwe Sigcawu, presented her with the Hintsa Bravery Award in recognition of her role in keeping the struggle fire burning while other leaders were jailed or in exile.

Winnie’s millennium message was that she would continue to fight against poverty and unemployment, and for the upliftment of women and children. As the lone voice of criticism from within the ranks of the ANC she injected a powerful element of reality into the ruling party’s politics, and as a parliamentarian she showed that it was possible to support, even represent, a political party and government without being a slave to obedience and loyalty. She was, in fact, unrelenting and unapologetic in her criticism of the government, and never let an opportunity pass to castigate them.

In June 2000, she attended the funeral of two pupils who had been shot and killed by police during a protest against evictions in the township of Alexandra, north of Johannesburg. She said it felt as though she was burying Hector Petersen all over again, and that her presence was an act of repentance on behalf of the government she represented. Shortly afterwards, she annoyed and embarrassed the government and angered white South Africans by travelling to Zimbabwe and publicly voicing sympathy and support for the so-called war veterans who were
invading and seizing white-owned commercial farms. President Mbeki had been under considerable pressure to intervene in the crisis in Zimbabwe, or at the very least level public criticism at Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF government, but had studiously avoided doing so in favour of ‘quiet diplomacy’ behind the scenes. Winnie was fully aware that her actions infuriated the government and the ANC, but as always the sound of her own drum dictated the route she followed.

In July, she arrived at an international AIDS conference in Durban wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the words ‘HIV-positive’, and joined demands for the government to supply free anti-retroviral medication to the millions of South Africans infected with the deadly virus. Mbeki and his health minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, had been at war with AIDS activists ever since the president publicly espoused the views of dissidents who claim that poverty, not the virus, causes AIDS, and that the anti-retrovirals are toxic. While Mbeki offered a stunned international community intellectual rather than scientifically based arguments to justify his stance, Winnie addressed some 3 000 people at a rally on the urgent need for people with HIV and AIDS to have access to the life-giving drugs. In a hard-hitting speech, she compared the battle for AIDS treatment to the struggle against apartheid, roundly condemned the health department for failing to provide access to affordable medication, and said that while the government wasted its time with rebel scientists, South Africa was facing a social holocaust.