Winnie Mandela (29 page)

According to one version of the conspiracy, a senior warder would be bribed to lace the coffee of the two guards on duty outside Mandela’s cell with sedatives, then help South Africa’s most famous prisoner to walk out of jail dressed in a warder’s uniform and carrying a firearm. Bruce would be waiting offshore in a speedboat, and Mandela, after disguising himself in a diver’s wetsuit, would be ferried to the mainland and quickly driven to an airstrip, where famous British aviatrix Sheila Scott would be warming up the engine of a light aircraft, ready to whisk him out of the country.

Bruce advertised in the London
Times
for a capable organiser who could take care of ‘unusual work’. One of those who responded was Gordon Winter. His credentials as a ‘dissident’ South African were perfect for the task, and provided BOSS with the opportunity to infiltrate the plan without the British participants being any the wiser about Winter’s true identity. While the British conspirators were planning to rescue Mandela, BOSS was intent on orchestrating his death. Winter would arrange that the gun given to Mandela was loaded with blanks, and he would be shot dead as he boarded Scott’s aircraft. The South African authorities would claim every justification for killing Mandela after his armed escape from Robben Island.

Whether or not the plan could ever have succeeded became moot when the British secret service was tipped off by Sir Robert Birley, husband of Winnie’s friend Lady Elinor, after Bruce had confided in him. The plan was aborted, apparently
because Scott changed her mind, Marianne Borman became suspicious of Winter, and British intelligence threatened to blow the whistle on everyone to avoid the acute embarrassment the role of British nationals would have caused the government in Whitehall.

Winnie’s banning order had expired while she was in prison, towards the end of 1970, and almost the first thing she did on being released was apply for permission to visit Mandela. She also travelled to the Transkei to see her father for the first time in several years. Both their lives had changed radically in the interim, and they were glad of the chance to heal the rift between them. Columbus was living in a government mansion in Umtata, but Winnie noticed immediately that he had aged visibly, and was not in good health. Columbus was equally concerned about Winnie’s haggard appearance, but it was a happy reunion, nevertheless, and before long they were their old selves with one another.

During the visit, Columbus confessed that he was troubled and had developed grave doubts about the so-called independence of the Transkei. He had seen no benefits for their people, and, if anything, he told Winnie, the poverty, overcrowding and unemployment were worse than ever, with thousands of people having been uprooted from settled lives and jobs in the urban areas, only to be dumped in remote parts of the Transkei where there were no opportunities at all. He told her he had become bitterly disillusioned, and was heartbroken by the fact that the homelands were sustaining the migrant labour system. Columbus poured out his heart to Winnie, and admitted that he had been misled into believing that the homelands would redress the wrongs and injustices visited on black people by the apartheid government. As citizens of non-existent countries, people were deprived of their South African citizenship, and Columbus had belatedly understood that the entire homeland scheme was a ruse to prevent them from claiming political rights outside of their traditional tribal areas.

The pilgrimage to her roots and the reconciliation with her father restored Winnie’s equilibrium. She returned to Soweto invigorated and determined not to be distracted from what she saw as her purpose in life: to keep Mandela’s name alive and focus attention on the liberation struggle. But on reaching home, she realised almost immediately that the authorities had no intention of easing the relentless pressure on her. The house had been raided again in her absence, and while she was picking up the books flung carelessly on the floor, her Xhosa Bible fell open, exposing an expertly hollowed out recess in the pages, in the shape of a gun. She knew this could only be the work of the security police ‘dirty tricks’ squad and that it would serve no purpose to report it, but she did show it to some of her friends. Six years later, when she was banished to the Free State and the police packed up her belongings, the Bible disappeared.

Within days of her return from the Transkei, she was served a double blow: her application to visit Nelson had been turned down, and she was issued with a fresh and more stringent five-year banning order. She sat down and wept. It had been two years since she had seen Nelson, and her newfound resolve all but crumbled. She was forbidden from leaving her house from 6 pm to 6 am, and over weekends. That would be inconvenient, but she could live with it. Not being allowed to see Madiba, however, was almost more than she could bear. In the five years that he had been on Robben Island, Winnie had been arrested more often than she had been permitted to visit her husband in jail.

Many detainees were mentally shattered, some permanently, after months of detention, interrogation and torture, and Winnie’s friends and family were anxious about the effect her terrifying experience might have had on her. But once she had recovered from the physical ravages of her imprisonment, she seemed to be her old self: cheerful, tenacious and more determined than ever to carry the struggle flag. If anything, she seemed stronger and more resilient than before, and those closest to her were in awe of her resolve. Winnie herself said prison had liberated her inner self and purified her soul. She understood why she had been imprisoned. All of South Africa, she said, was a prison for black people, and it was easier to comprehend the regulated suffering of formal incarceration than the endless hardships and injustices imposed on blacks in every aspect of their everyday lives.

Most people had no idea of the conditions under which Winnie and other activists were detained, since the Prisons Act prevented newspapers from publishing anything about life behind bars. However, when newspapers reported details of her two trials and acquittals, the new banning order that followed her release from prison, and especially the fact that she was refused permission to visit Mandela, there were stringent protests from religious leaders and the political opposition, and for once the authorities heeded the criticism. When Winnie again sought permission to go to Robben Island a month later, the Minister of Justice handled the matter personally, and her request was approved.

It was an emotionally charged meeting for both Winnie and Nelson. She had lost a great deal of weight in prison and still looked drained, and there was almost nothing Mandela could say except to assure her of his love and to remind her, yet again, that their cause was just. Winnie fervently believed that their sacrifice was not in vain, but she desperately needed his nearness and comfort. She couldn’t even hold his hand, and could see him only from the waist up through the glass, the ever-present warders hovering over them, ears pricked for any breach of the conversation rules. In the background was the distinctive whirr of a tape-recorder, capturing their every word.

It was the first time since Thembi’s death that Winnie had seen Nelson, and
there was so much to talk about – and so little time. How do you encapsulate two years in thirty minutes? How do you console the man you love for the loss of his son? How do you make any decisions when there is no time to explore any one issue? How do you express longing for one another’s physical presence with two hostile strangers listening to every word? They barely had time to even touch on the most important matters and reassure one another as best they could before the warder said ‘Time’s up’ and Winnie had to leave.

She walked back to the ferry in a daze, struggling to keep her composure, trying to focus on getting to the airport and home. She felt weak and disorientated, and ineffably tired. She feared that she might collapse, and willed herself to reach the relative safety of her home, praying that it would not have been left in disarray by yet another raid.

She made it back to Orlando, probably as much through sheer determination as anything else, but once she shut the door behind her, the tidal wave of heartache and anxiety, frustration and trauma that had been welling up over the past few years, hit her. At the age of thirty-six, Winnie Mandela had a heart attack.

The illness compelled Winnie to rest and take care of herself. She emerged from a period of recuperation with restored vitality and energy – and she would need it. The security police were sorely frustrated that their attempts to silence her and keep her behind bars for as long as possible had failed. Until they had collected enough information to act against her again, they would have to be content with a renewed campaign of dirty tricks and harassment. During a raid on her home, they found her sister, brother-in-law and Peter Magubane (who was also banned), and charged Winnie with breaking her banning order. Her younger sister Nonyaniso was arrested for being in Johannesburg without a permit and given seventy-two hours to return to the Transkei. Sometimes, the police invaded Winnie’s house four times in one day. Mandela lodged an appeal with the Minister of Justice for Winnie’s ban to be lifted, but got no response. She might have been released from prison, but Winnie was living under siege.

During the early 1960s, the ANC was a vibrant and fast-growing organisation. Despite the apartheid government’s repression and stifling legislation, it had been possible to organise national campaigns and conferences, stage the momentous Congress of the People, adopt the Freedom Charter, establish representation abroad, launch Umkhonto we Sizwe, and kindle international recognition and support. By 1970, however, the movement had been reduced to little more than a nuisance factor. At the end of 1969, a secret American intelligence report assessed the ANC’s political influence as weak, and noted that the organisation had been widely infiltrated by government agents. American historian Thomas Karis wrote that the ANC had become little more than a shadowy presence, and
when
Washington Post
correspondent Jim Hoagland visited South Africa in 1970, he found that Luthuli, Mandela and Sisulu were ‘perceived dimly, as if they belonged to another time, long past and long lost’.

Mandela later acknowledged that during this period scant attention was paid to him or the ANC, and in November 1970 a draft ANC document conceded that the organisation was moribund. The leadership recognised that black people had become politically reticent,
tsotsis
were paid for information, and there were spies and informers everywhere. The Rivonia prisoners’ worst fears were turning into reality. Ever since their imprisonment on Robben Island, they had been afraid that removal of the leadership from the political stage would see a parallel retreat from the ANC by supporters both in South Africa and internationally. As media reports about the liberation struggle slowed to a trickle, then stopped altogether, their concerns proved warranted.

Between the ANC and oblivion stood the lone and battered figure of Winnie Mandela.

In the political vacuum created by the virtual withdrawal of the ANC from the political arena, a new brand of black opposition evolved, and Winnie was one of the few members of the ANC’s top echelon to embrace it. The next generation of young and angry blacks gravitated towards Black Consciousness, and Winnie, with her instinctive populist approach, had little difficulty identifying with the concept. She understood and empathised with the anger of the youth, and they, in turn, trusted and looked up to her, surreptitiously visiting her and seeking her counsel. From what she saw and heard, she realised that ways had to be found to accommodate the new mood and aspirations of young black activists under the banner of the ANC. It would not be easy, and Winnie was the only person who could act as the link between the Old Guard and the Young Turks. Since any political conversations were strictly prohibited, Winnie could not discuss the situation with Mandela, and had to be content with relaying her cryptic messages to him, then formulating his equally arcane responses into proposals that would be acceptable to the youth.

The government had long since ceased to regard Winnie merely as a branch of their vendetta against Mandela. Challenged initially by her refusal to capitulate, then by her growing political involvement, they recognised her strength and power and she became a target in her own right. Her avowed commitment to keeping both the struggle and Nelson Mandela’s name alive was gaining momentum. Meanwhile, in seclusion on Robben Island and with no way of playing a direct role in politics, the ANC leaders increasingly focused their attention on survival of the spirit. Mandela, especially, concentrated all his efforts on preparing himself and the others for the day when they would be free men. He knew that some of them might not live long enough to see that day, but this did not deter him. He was single-minded
in his determination that the political prisoners would use the time in prison to further their studies, so that they would emerge as educated intellectuals.

Barely perceptible shifts in the attitude of the prison authorities made their lives somewhat more bearable. From 1970, the prisoners were allowed to have photographs of close family members. Winnie immediately made up an album and sent it to Nelson, and regularly updated the pictures of herself and the children, and later also their grandchildren. Mandela carefully pasted each new photograph into the album, which fellow prisoners often asked to borrow. Some of them seldom or never received visitors or letters, and the Mandela photo album became their only link with a lost family life, a ‘window on the world’, as Mandela called it. Eventually, the album had been paged through so often that it began to fall apart, and Mandela found that some of the photographs had been removed. Although this upset him, he forgave the photo thieves, reasoning that they were so desperate to have something personal in their cells that they could not resist the temptation.

The difference in the lives of the two Mandelas became ever more discernible. As Nelson retreated into a life of philosophy and academic zeal, Winnie was moving inexorably towards the front line of the battle against apartheid. In 1972, security policemen kicked down the door of her house, bricks were flung through a window, shots fired at the front door. She was watched more closely than any other banned person, and the campaign against her bore testimony to the fact that it had become a personal vendetta. The government was fully aware of the deadly blow it had dealt the struggle by jailing Mandela and other ANC leaders, and they did not want Winnie stepping into the breach. If anything, they wanted her out of the way and behind bars, and repeated efforts were made to get a criminal conviction against her, even though some of the charges bordered on the absurd.