Winnie Mandela (43 page)
In March, the Mandelas went on a tour of Africa, including Zambia, seat of the ANC in exile, Zimbabwe and Namibia, where they attended the independence celebrations on 21 March. Everywhere they went, they were met by large and joyful crowds. In Dar es Salaam, an estimated 500 000 people gathered to welcome Mandela.
Next, they went to Europe, travelling to Stockholm to visit Oliver Tambo, who was recovering after suffering a stroke, and to London to attend a concert in Mandela’s honour at Wembley Stadium. In June, Winnie and Nelson went to Paris, Switzerland, Italy, the Netherlands and England, then on to America.
Winnie was still a beautiful woman, and thanks to the media, was more recognisable in some countries than Mandela himself – and perhaps as much of a drawcard for the crowds. For the first time in its history, New York had a black
mayor, David N Dinkins, and when the Mandelas came to town, the Big Apple went wild. One million people lined the streets as the Mandelas were accorded New York’s ultimate honour, a ticker-tape parade, a tradition dating back to 1927 when aviator Charles Lindbergh was the first recipient. During their three days in the city they visited Harlem, which Winnie described as the Soweto of America; Brooklyn, where a high school student, Kalil Davis-Manigaulte, had taught 5 000 people to toyi-toyi in their honour; and Yankee Stadium, where 45 000 frenzied fans turned out for a rally and concert.
The main purpose of the visit was for Mandela to address the UN General Assembly. I was working in New York at the time and, as a South African, was allocated one of the much sought after broadcasting booths, and had the honour of doing a direct radio broadcast from the UN to South Africa and Namibia. At 11.03 am on 22 June, Mandela walked into the massive General Assembly hall to a standing ovation that lasted several minutes. The public gallery was packed, and in his introduction, Secretary General Xavier Perez de Cuellar said Nelson Mandela symbolised the unconquerable spirit of the people of South Africa in their struggle against apartheid. In Mandela’s address, he said it would forever remain a challenge to all men and women of conscience to explain why it took so long to say ‘enough is enough’. Future generations would ask how apartheid could have happened in the aftermath of the Nuremberg Trials, and the world’s determination never again to allow a racist system to exist.
In the midst of this historic event, I was struck by the level of adulation for Winnie among Americans, notwithstanding months of negative publicity about the Stompie Seipei case. Her long years of harassment and banishment had been well documented by the media, and Americans wanted to honour and show their support for the woman who was widely credited with keeping the liberation struggle alive at enormous personal cost. People told me they had nothing but the highest admiration for her, that she was a courageous fighter for human rights and women’s rights, charismatic and elegant, loved by the downtrodden and oppressed.
Having eschewed the fashion capitals of Paris and London in favour of shopping in Manhattan for the clothes she needed for the various formal functions, including a purple satin ballgown with beaded bodice for dinner at the White House, Winnie also endeared herself to the American fashion industry. The owner of the elegant Victoria Royal showroom was so dazzled by her charm that he insisted Winnie accept the expensive outfits she chose as a gift.
Home again, Winnie managed to convince Mandela to move to the Diepkloof house, which she proudly said she had built specially for him. Before long, however, the rumours started again: she was out alone until the early hours of the morning, often returning having had too much to drink. Little more than a week after Mandela’s release,
The Star had
posed the question: How long can Winnie’s
demure image last? Now the media became relentless in its criticism, casting suspicion on her every word and deed.
The ANC was anxious to find solutions to the problems surrounding Winnie, because they realised that when it came time for all South Africans to go to the polls, they would need her strong and particular appeal to those on the fringes of society. Mandela was burdened with both the multitude of problems facing the country and a simmering marital crisis, but most people appeared oblivious to the tension building between him and Winnie. Friends said he clearly still loved her and saw her as the adoring, supportive wife he had left behind thirty years before. But circumstances had forced Winnie to become independent, to make her own way, and she found it difficult to revert to the pattern of their early years together. Mandela continued to practise the habits of a lifetime, rising before dawn and going to bed early. Winnie, on the other hand, had grown accustomed to staying up late, and, after years of battling insomnia, her routine included a great deal of after-dark activity. Mandela tried to woo her away from what he viewed as undesirable associations, but with little success. It was Fatima Meer who pinpointed the underlying problem. Ironically, during the long years of separation, they had been able to maintain a togetherness, but once they were reunited, both Nelson and Winnie discovered how different – and distant from one another – they had become.
The weight on Mandela’s shoulders was about to increase, both on the domestic and the political front. On 2 May, the ANC had entered into preliminary talks with the government at Groote Schuur, FW de Klerk’s official Cape Town residence. After three days of intense talks, the government agreed to create a climate conducive to negotiations by lifting the state of emergency, releasing political prisoners and revoking repressive laws. In May, as well, Mandela United Football Club coach Jerry Richardson went on trial for the murder of Stompie Seipei, the attempted murder of Lerotodi Ikaneng, four counts of kidnapping and four counts of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm. Kenneth Kgase, Thabiso Mono and Pelo Mekgwe testified to Richardson’s role in their abduction, and their attempt to kill Ikaneng on the coach’s orders.
Winnie was repeatedly implicated in the assaults by the youthful witnesses, but Richardson denied under oath that she had been present or involved. She had not even been at home when Stompie was beaten, he said, having left for Brandfort on 29 December and returning only on 2 January. He insisted that Mono, Kgase and Mekgwe were lying when they said Winnie had assaulted them. Richardson claimed Xoliswa Falati had gone with him to fetch the boys from the manse, that they had gone with them voluntarily, and that on the way to Winnie’s house they were singing and chatting. He admitted punching and slapping all four
boys but denied harming them in any other way. He also claimed that he had stabbed Ikaneng in the neck and tried to kill him, and denied telling Mono, Kgase and Mekgwe to cut his throat. He denied killing Stompie, but the evidence suggested otherwise.
On 24 May, Richardson was found guilty of Stompie’s murder, four counts of kidnapping, four counts of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm, and one count of attempted murder. Significantly, the judge found that Winnie
had
been at home for at least part of the day on 29 December, the day after Stompie was taken to her house and first beaten. On 8 August, Richardson was sentenced to death for the murder of Stompie Seipei. He was also sentenced to five years’ imprisonment for the four kidnappings and three for the assaults, with an additional two years for the aggravated assault on Stompie and eight years for the attempted murder of Ikaneng. In mitigation, his defence counsel claimed that he had been influenced by Winnie.
Later that month, another former member of the Mandela Football Club, Charles Zwane, was found guilty on nine counts of murder, eight of attempted murder and one count of arson, and in September he was given nine death sentences. His defence, too, was that he had acted under Winnie’s influence.
For months, Witwatersrand Attorney-General Klaus von Lieres had been under pressure to charge Winnie with the kidnapping of the four boys from the Methodist manse, and for Stompie’s death. He had stalled, but the day after Zwane was sentenced, he announced that Winnie would be charged along with seven co-accused: Xoliswa Falati and her daughter Nomphumelelo, John Morgan, Jabu Sithole, Brian Mabuza, Mpho Mabelane and Katiza Cebekhulu. Because Richardson had already been convicted of Stompie’s murder, the others would be tried only for kidnapping and assault.
Mandela had to weather a major political crisis after the security police uncovered a top secret ANC operation, code-named Vula: a sophisticated plan directed by Mac Maharaj and Siphiwe Nyanda to deploy MK operatives and hide arms caches throughout the country, so that in the event of negotiations breaking down, the armed struggle could be resumed and power seized by force. Maharaj had returned to South Africa under deep cover to run the operation while he was ostensibly in Moscow, receiving medical treatment. His wife, Zarina, even travelled to Russia to bolster the cover story, and it was by pure chance that the operation was exposed when police arrested two Vula operatives on an unrelated matter. Maharaj and other operatives were arrested on 25 July and charged with plotting to overthrow the government. Mandela, who denied knowing anything about the secret plot, was placed in an extremely difficult position, and De Klerk exploited the government’s advantage to the full, denouncing the ANC as perfidious revolutionaries in cahoots with the communists. On the advice of Joe Slovo,
Mandela offered De Klerk an immediate cessation of the armed struggle. De Klerk, in turn, undertook to release all remaining political prisoners and offer blanket indemnity to exiles so that they could return home.
The crisis was defused, but between Vula and the court cases involving members of the MUFC, the media had a field day – and there was more to come.
In September, Mandela announced that Winnie had been appointed the ANC’s head of social welfare. It was a controversial decision, vehemently opposed by one faction within the organisation on the grounds that she had become irresponsible and a burden to the ANC. But there was no denying that Winnie had built up a powerful support base among the youth, in particular, most of whom would be eligible to vote in the ‘new’ South Africa’s first election, and ways had to be found of accommodating her.
With her trial set for 4 February, Mandela publicly offered his full support, slating the prosecution as part of a government campaign to discredit Winnie. On the other hand, there were rumours that De Klerk was urging Von Lieres to drop the case, in light of Mandela’s pivotal role in the all-important political negotiations. On the first day of the trial, ANC supporters turned out in force to support Winnie, led by Mandela, Slovo, Alfred Nzo, Chris Hani and Fatima Meer. Oliver and Adelaide Tambo sent a message from London assuring her of their love and confidence.
As if the presence of this array of ANC luminaries in a court where the country’s potential next First Lady was facing charges of abducting and beating children was not sensational enough, the day was filled with drama. First, the judge was told that four of the accused had fled the country since being charged, and only Winnie, the two Falati women and John Morgan were in the dock. Then the prosecutor announced that Pelo Mekgwe, a key witness as one of the boys who had been kidnapped from the manse, had been abducted again. Whether this was true or whether Mekgwe had changed his mind about testifying, he had disappeared, and the trial had to be postponed while the police tried to find him.
When the court reconvened on 6 March 1991, neither Mekgwe nor the missing defendants had been found, but the state announced that it would introduce evidence of assaults on two other boys and the disappearance of Lolo Sono to support its case.
In February 1989, Winnie’s driver – and co-accused – John Morgan had made a statement claiming that Winnie had, in fact, been at home when Stompie was assaulted, and had slapped the boy after accusing him of having sex with Paul Verryn. During the trial, he retracted this statement, saying he had made it only because he was tortured by the police. Xoliswa Falati testified that she had taken the four youths to Winnie’s house because they were being sexually molested by Verryn; and that after taking Katiza Cebekhulu to Dr Asvat’s surgery, Winnie had
left for Brandfort. Thabo Motau, one of Winnie’s neighbours, testified that he had driven her to the Free State on 29 December, and Norah Moahloli, a schoolteacher and old friend of Winnie’s from Brandfort, testified that Winnie stayed with her that night and over the next two days, visited the elderly, attended township meetings and held discussions on some of the projects she had launched while living in Phatakahle.
As they had done at Richardson’s trial, Kenneth Kgase and Thabisa Mono testified that Winnie had taken part in the assault on them and Stompie.
Winnie spent five gruelling days on the witness stand, but never wavered from her alibi: she had been in Brandfort and knew nothing of the beatings.
The judge found her guilty on the charges of kidnapping, and as an accessory to assault. She was, he said, a ‘calm, composed, deliberate and unblushing liar’ who had undoubtedly authorised the abductions, but he accepted that she was not at home when the assaults were carried out. However, by continuing to hold the boys captive, she had associated herself with the crime. Winnie was sentenced to five years in prison on the four counts of kidnapping, and one year as an accessory to assault. Xoliswa Falati was found guilty on all charges and sentenced to six years in prison. Morgan was found guilty of kidnapping and sentenced to one year’s imprisonment, suspended for five years.
Winnie was granted leave to appeal and her bail was extended. Mandela told the media of the world that, verdict or no verdict, as far as he was concerned, her innocence was never in doubt. But despite his very public show of support, their marriage was clearly in trouble, although Fatima Meer believed this was more because of the power struggle within the ANC than serious personal issues. Winnie was increasingly critical of Mandela’s political outlook, and had been shocked when he described De Klerk as a man of integrity. She argued with Mandela over his view, denouncing De Klerk as no less a murderer than PW Botha. And Mandela’s call on ANC supporters in Natal to disarm enraged her.