SOUTH AFRICA-POLITICS: Will the ‘Real’ Truth Ever Be Known?

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Gumisai Mutume

JOHANNESBURG, Dec 4 1997 (IPS) - For more than a week now, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has been digging deep into the past of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and her bodyguards. But the truth remains elusive.

Contradictions kept emerging during the nine-day hearings which began Nov. 24. The TRC is investigating the involvement of Madikizela-Mandela and her Mandela United Football Club (MUFC) in 18 human rights abuses including eight murders.

The hearing seek to establish whether Madikizela-Mandela was responsible for the MUFC’s actions. The Club allegedly carried out a reign of terror in Soweto during the late 1980s. She claims she knew nothing.

“I have never met any of them. I actually met them here for the first time,” said Madikizela-Mandela referring to Zakhele Mbatha and Thulani Dhlamini convicted of murdering Soweto doctor Abu-Baker Asvat. Mbatha claimed they committed the murder in 1989 on Madikizela-Mandela’s instruction and an offer of 4,000 dollars.

Madikizela-Mandela also has denied any knowledge that young boys were being assaulted in her house. She claims she did not see any injuries on any of the boys and did not get any visit from a Mandela Crisis Committee.

But it has been noted that four boys, including the late Stompie Seipei were abducted from a methodist manse where Peter Verryn, a priest looking after them, was allegedly sodomising the boys.

The boys were allegedly assaulted in Madikizela-Mandela’s house and Seipei labelled a police informer.

“That is ludicrous and the worst lunacy,” she said answering to allegations that she ordered the killing of the 14-year-old activist Seipei in 1989. “I learnt of Stompie’s death in the media around about the time that whole thing exploded.”

There have been harrowing accounts of how Madikizela-Mandela and her bodyguards allegedly terrorised the townships resulting also in the deaths of youths Lolo Sono and Siboniso Shabalala, her daughter’s boyfriend Sizwe Sithole, and of Kuki Zwane, Sicelo Dhlamini and Sibusiso Chili, whom she either fell out with or suspected of being spies.

“At best she was aware of these criminal activities, at worst, she directed them and actively participated in the assaults,” according to Azhar Cachalia who was part of the Mandela Crisis Committee, formed in 1988 to investigate the activities of the football club and Madikizela-Mandela.

“I do not want to cry, but the things we did as the Mandela football club are horrible,” said Jerry Richardson, former coach of the club and convicted murderer of Seipei. Richardson cried when he recalled how they abused and killed youths suspected of being spies.

“I killed Stompie in accordance with Mami’s (Winnie) instructions. She never killed anyone, but instructed us to kill people …I slaughtered him like a goat … I put garden shears through his neck.”

Richardson’s testimony however contradicts evidence presented by University of the Witwatersrand forensic pathologist Patricia Klepp who says Seipei was stabbed (and not slaughtered like a goat) with a sharp object which could have been a dagger.

Richardson’s evidence also contradicts that given by key witness Katiza Cebekhulu who told the TRC that he saw Madikizela- Mandela stab Seipei.

In 1991, Madikizela-Mandela was convicted for kidnapping Seipei and given a six-year sentence which was commuted to a 3,000 dollar fine. Witnesses have admitted to the TRC that they lied to protect her during the Seipei trial. A key witness, Cebekhulu was whisked out of the country and could not testify at that trial.

It has also emerged that Richardson was a police spy. He told the Commission that he began giving information to the police in March 1987.

Police operatives have not made it easier to get to the truth by admitting they engineered a strategy to spread false, damning information about Madikizela-Mandela as part of a Strategic Communications (Stratcom) operation.

Some of Stratcom’s activities included allegations that Madikizela-Mandela was having a relationship with archbishop Desmond Tutu, who now heads the TRC.

Some of the more than 20 witnesses called upon to testify have evidently lied to the Commission. Others have denied previous statements made under oath.

It had been expected that respected ANC veteran Albertina Sisulu, who worked for Dr Asvat would give damning evidence against Madikizela-Mandela. But Sisulu told the Commission she knew very little.

So far Madikizela-Mandela is the only high ranking African National Congress (ANC) official to come before the TRC. It comes at a time when she is at loggerheads with the party’s top leadership and at a time when she is contesting for the deputy- presidency of the organisation.

Some of the evidence she gave to the TRC Thursday, contradicted her earlier statements in court and at times, she appeared irritated when awkward questions were put to her.

At one time, Tutu stopped the cross examination and called up several witnesses including Seipei’s mother Joyce. In an emotional scene, Joyce and Winnie hugged in front of the Commission.

Tutu has been at pains to explain that the TRC is not a court and the body will not pass any judgement. It is only seeking background information for its final report to be presented to President Nelson Mandela.

The TRC, dubbed South Africa’s own Nuremburg trials was established by an act of parliament to probe apartheid-era crimes perpetrated during the period 1960 to 1994.

Eight days of the TRC’s hearings were devoted to witnesses who included high ranking ANC officials, former members of MUFC, religious leaders and state-security operatives. The last day was devoted to Madikizela-Mandela.

“In hindsight, if I had the information I now have at my disposal, surely I would have acted differently,” said Madikizela- Mandela.

“Most of the acts which took place, by some of these boys, were when they operated away from my house. I am not responsible for the actions they undertook outside my premises.”