Bloem later told me that he had been in regular contact with Caleb Motshabi, an MK operative who established and oversaw the primary network through which the Free State’s underground recruits were transported from Thaba ’Nchu, near Bloemfontein, to Lesotho.
According to Bloem, Motshabi never mentioned that Magashule was in any way involved in the process. ‘After I exposed Ace, many ANC
comrades contacted me and told me someone needed to say this, this
thing needed to come out,’ Bloem told me.
As expected, Bloem’s public accusations drew criticism from people sympathetic to Magashule. In a letter to the Sunday Independent, former MK member and public service and administration minister Ayanda Dlodlo came to his aid. ‘There is more than enough evidence to prove that Magashule was indeed in the liberation struggle not as a planted enemy, but as a freedom fighter,’ she wrote. ‘All too often, we tend to want to erase those that we do not like for whatever reason, in a quest to satisfy our hate. ’8
In her defence of Magashule, Dlodlo cited an indictment document that formed part of the Delmas Treason Trial. The document sets out some of the accuseds’ activities in Tumahole in the mid-1980s. 9 One was a campaign that saw UDF-aligned organisations like the Tumahole Students Organisation allegedly intimidate and attack ward councillors from Tumahole who were viewed as ‘sell-outs’ and ‘puppets’ of the apartheid government. ‘On 24 March 1985 the house of a woman councilor [ sic] … was petrol bombed,’ reads the document. ‘On the next day it was attacked with stones. Present were Ace Magashule, Vuyo Dabi and [Lister] Skosana.’
The attacks on this councillor’s home continued even after she had resigned. According to the document: ‘Her husband thereupon fetched Ace Magashule, Mosepidi and Thabane who said that they did not know the reason for the attacks as they had told the children to accept this councilor back into the community.’ Mosepidi and Thabane, whose first names are not disclosed in the document, were members of the Tumahole Civic Association (TCA).
Other records from the Delmas trial further detail Magashule’s role in protest activities. One witness, Matthews Thekiso, testified that
Magashule spoke at a TCA meeting in February 1985. The purpose of the gathering had been to address rent increases imposed on Tumahole residents, and Magashule apparently urged residents to stand together in their opposition to the increases. 10
Magashule was not one of the twenty-two accused in the Delmas trial, but these court records do confirm that he at least participated in struggle activities. However, the documented proof of his presence in the broader struggle environment seems to be at odds with the tales Magashule has told in an apparent attempt to embellish his struggle record.
Dlodlo maintained that there was ‘anecdotal evidence from comrades’
that enabled her to ‘positively place Magashule in the trenches’. ‘A senior commissar of uMkhonto weSizwe remembers meeting Magashule in Botswana, he had come with three others from Tumahole to seek training,’ she claimed. 11 But this contradicted Magashule’s own version of events. As mentioned earlier, he told the ANC Oral History Project that he was trained ‘inside the country’.
Dlodlo’s assertion also refuted those of my sources who were with Magashule during that time, and who all maintained that he never received any military training. Requests to Dlodlo’s spokesperson for information on the ‘senior commissar’ she mentioned in her article went unanswered.
It is also worth noting that Stompie Seipei’s mother, Mananki, does not share Magashule’s view that Madikizela-Mandela was not involved in her son’s death.
I went to her home in Tumahole several months after Magashule’s visit. Mananki’s daughter translated her heartbreaking recollection of Stompo, which is the original nickname his family gave him because of
his diminutive figure. His mother does not know when ‘Stompo’
became ‘Stompie’.
Mananki was upset that some media reports had suggested that she too believed Madikizela-Mandela was innocent. ‘The stories that said Stompie’s mom believes Winnie did not kill Stompie are not true, she never said that,’ explained Mananki’s daughter. ‘What she said was that she forgave whoever was responsible for his death. All she knows about his death is that he was last seen going to Winnie’s house.’
There is a backstory to the Seipei saga that might explain why Magashule wants to create the impression that Stompie’s mother shares his belief in Madikizela-Mandela’s innocence.
In November 1988, about a month before Seipei’s brutal murder at the hands of members of Madikizela-Mandela’s infamous Mandela United Football Club, Magashule showed up at Reverend Paul Verryn’s office at the South African Council of Churches’ headquarters. 12 In those days, the SACC’s offices were at the Central Methodist Church in downtown Johannesburg. Verryn had had intermittent contact with Magashule’s group of internal exiles, and had even conducted the ceremony when Magashule married his wife, Seipati, at the Central Methodist Church in 1987.
When Magashule came to Verryn at the end of 1988, he had with him a young boy whom Verryn would later come to know as Stompie, a fourteen-year-old political activist from Magashule’s hometown in the Free State. According to Verryn, Magashule was also accompanied by Matthew Chaskalson. Chaskalson, however, recalled that Magashule or one of the other comrades from Parys had come to fetch Seipei from his house in Johannesburg, after which he never saw the boy again.
Whatever the case, Magashule wanted Verryn to take Seipei into his
care at his parsonage in Soweto, which was near Madikizela-Mandela’s house. Magashule was concerned for Seipei’s safety, as he had been recently apprehended by the security police and risked re-arrest. Verryn agreed to take Seipei in.
But shortly after he arrived in Soweto, members of the Mandela United Football Club kidnapped Seipei and three other youths from the parsonage. They were taken to Madikizela-Mandela’s house, where
‘Mama Winnie’ and other club members viciously assaulted them and accused Seipei of being a spy for the security police, according to the testimony of one of the surviving youths at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). 13 A week later, Seipei’s body was found near Madikizela-Mandela’s house. His throat had been cut.
Jerry Richardson, one of Madikizela-Mandela’s bodyguards, later told the TRC that he had ‘slaughtered’ Seipei ‘like a sheep’ after Madikizela-Mandela had ordered him to do so. 14 While Madikizela-Mandela was later only convicted on charges of kidnapping and accessory to assault, she will forever remain a key figure in the story of Seipei’s murder.
Is it possible that Magashule, who had all but delivered his young comrade from Tumahole to death’s door, felt guilty about his role in this dark part of our history? It might explain why he was all too willing to absolve Madikizela-Mandela of any apartheid-era atrocities, especially concerning Seipei.
Magashule did not speak directly about the incident during his ANC
Oral History Project interview, but he addressed, in broad terms, the killing of innocents who had been accused of collaborating with the apartheid state. ‘They say in any struggle obviously there would be victims,’ he said. ‘A lot of people, I think, were innocent. I know even
in the country here when we were still fighting inside there were some of the comrades [who] were labeled by most of us in the country as enemies, infiltrators and spies. And it turned out not to be true.’
In February 1989, the Mass Democratic Movement (MDM), which had been formed in the wake of the government’s clampdown on the UDF, formally distanced itself from Madikizela-Mandela. The Seipei saga had been the final straw in a series of reports about how her so-called football club had been terrorising the people of Soweto. 15
Several sources familiar with events say Magashule was one of the few people who defended Madikizela-Mandela. He tried to persuade the MDM to reconsider its decision, but to no avail. ‘Ace was a very vocal supporter of Winnie,’ said one such source. ‘He camp
aigned very hard for the movement not to abandon her.’
When asked why Magashule continued to support her, one of his former associates from the Hillbrow unit had this to say: ‘His motivation was money. Winnie raised a lot of money for the movement, and some of that money came Ace’s way.’
Madikizela-Mandela and Magashule maintained close ties during this period, but things were not always smooth between them. The same source told me that Magashule once crashed a car that belonged to Madikizela-Mandela. ‘Ace was driving Winnie’s Volkswagen Golf in Soweto when he crashed and rolled the car near the Moroka police station. It was a bad crash, and we were all nearly killed. We had to quickly get out of there because the incident happened so close to a police station.’
The accident apparently sparked conflict between Magashule and lawyer Dali Mpofu, a close companion of Madikizela-Mandela who later became her legal representative following Seipei’s death. ‘Dali
made a lot of trouble for us,’ my source said, ‘because he told Winnie that we were drunk. But that wasn’t the case. Ace just lost control of the car because he was a bad driver.’
Magashule’s Hillbrow days came to an end not long after Seipei’s murder.
At some point in 1989, the group of internal exiles was staying in a flat in the Vistaero apartment building in Berea. ‘We were living next to another MK guy,’ said one source. ‘He had been sent to establish a route out of the country via Swaziland, but he was arrested in Nelspruit.’
The arrest sparked panic among Magashule’s group. ‘There were no cellphones, so we didn’t really know what was going on,’ the source continued, ‘but we suspected that our neighbour had spilled the beans on us when he was interrogated. We saw a white guy in the street who was checking out our apartment, so we decided to move to another flat in the same building.’
One night shortly thereafter, police raided the old apartment. ‘The cops stormed the apartment and practically tore it to pieces. They arrested one guy who did not move out with us, and they also took Ace’s son, who was also still in the apartment.’ The son was Tshepiso, Magashule’s firstborn child with Seipati and a young boy at the time.
Magashule referred to the incident in his interview for the ANC Oral History Project, although he placed it somewhat earlier in the timeline of events. ‘My firstborn child was arrested at John Vorster [the police headquarters in downtown Johannesburg], I can’t remember, in 1987, when they were looking for me, and he was only four years [old]. They thought I would hand over myself and I did not do so.’
According to one of my Hillbrow sources, Tshepiso was released and
Seipati took care of him from that point onwards.
The raid set in motion the Hillbrow group’s period of actual exile. ‘We never intended to leave the country, but that incident forced us to do so,’ said one source. ‘We stayed at the Carlton Hotel for about three weeks after the raid, but it was getting too expensive, so we decided to go to Zambia.’
The group left the country through Swaziland, arriving in Zambia in October 1989. Magashule left behind Seipati, Tshepiso and his youngest son, Thato, who had been born in January 1988. 16
‘My family did not follow me,’ Magashule told the ANC Oral History Project, ‘I had to leave them behind. It was difficult.’ He may have left his family, but he did take a young woman named Adelaide with him.
When they arrived in Zambia, the group was allowed to stay in Chris Hani’s house in Lusaka. Magashule took pride in the fact that he rubbed shoulders with Hani. ‘I did even stay with comrade Chris for some time when I was in Zambia,’ he later said. ‘He was one of those people who had a very serious impact on my life. ’17
But one of his fellow exiles from the Hillbrow unit recalls that Hani did not approve of Magashule’s behaviour. ‘Look, Ace is a ladies’ man.
He likes to always have women with him. So during that time, apart from having Adelaide with him, he was also bringing other women to Hani’s house.’ This landed Magashule’s crew in hot water with Hani and the rest of the ANC’s top brass. ‘They said we were putting the house at risk by bringing strange women there, so we were kicked out,’
my source revealed.
The group then moved on to Tanzania, where the ANC maintained some bases, arriving in December 1989. A source from this time said they were better off in Tanzania than in Zambia, seeing as they had
more freedom away from the ANC’s top leadership.
But Magashule’s memory of this period seems to be mostly negative.
‘I remember when I arrived in Tanzania … I was with some comrades
[and] we were eating sweet potato with tea. It was horrible. There wasn’t nice food there, life was not nice, completely not nice. For young women, it was not nice, it was difficult. ’18
He also had to deal with the death of a cousin. ‘I left with one of my cousins, unfortunately he passed away whilst in Tanzania.’ One of Magashule’s former struggle associates said the cousin, who drank heavily, had suffered from stomach ulcers.
There was also the constant threat of disease. ‘If you go to Tanzania there was an area called M’hlaba,’ recalled Magashule for the ANC
Oral History Project, ‘a lot of our comrades were affected by malaria.
So they were insane. If you walk around there you’d see them walking naked. I mean, it was a painful moment to see some of these comrades now naked. A lot of comrades died in exile.’
Then Adelaide fell pregnant with Magashule’s child. One of his struggle compatriots recalled that Magashule became particularly frustrated during this time. ‘He wanted to come home really badly,’
said this source.
His impatience would land him in trouble. ‘Ace went to the United Nations’ [UN] offices in Tanzania to ask if there was any way they could help him go back to South Africa,’ my source told me.
Magashule had apparently gone over the heads of the ANC’s leadership. But he would get caught. ‘There was an intelligence line between the UN offices and the ANC,’ my source explained, ‘so the leadership heard about his attempt to leave Tanzania without their permission. This got him in trouble again.’
Then, on 2 February 1990, President F.W. de Klerk made the landmark announcement that would pave the way for South Africa’s transition to a democratic state. Nelson Mandela would be released from prison, and the ANC and its affiliates were officially unbanned.
Magashule jumped at the opportunity to go home. He boarded a bus bound for South Africa around the time of De Klerk’s announcement, one of my sources told me. He had been in exile for a total of just five months, although he later claimed it was ‘almost 18 months’. 19
Circumstances apparently did not allow for Adelaide to travel home with him, and so he left her, pregnant and alone in a strange country.
Magashule relished being reunited with his family in South Africa.
‘The fact that the ANC was unbanned and we had to come back home and be welcomed … our friends were there, our mothers were still alive, my mother was still alive and my brother. Everybody was happy for us to come back, I was also happy,’ he said in his ANC Oral History Project interview.
Back in Tanzania, Adelaide gave birth to Magashule’s daughter, Thoko, in July 1990. Father and daughter were reunited about two decades later, by which time Magashule was premier of the Free State.
Any lingering anger Thoko may have felt at being abandoned with her mother in a foreign country was likely assuaged by the contracts she later clinched from her father’s provincial government.
PART II
PREMIER IN WAITING
4
An early scandal
The unbanning of the ANC sparked optimism in the broader liberation movement, but it did nothing to quell tensions between the two rival political factions in the Free State. In fact, the animosity between the two groups would only intensify in the years after South Africa took its dramatic turn towards democracy and freedom.
In early 1990, just be
fore he was about to be released from Victor Verster Prison near Paarl, Nelson Mandela met with ANC leaders from the country’s various regions and provinces. It was an opportunity for regional leaders to brief Mandela on what had been happening with their respective structures.
Dennis Bloem recalled that the Free State was the last province to brief Mandela before his release. ‘There were fifteen of us, including myself, Sekhopi Malebo, Zingile Dingane and Papiki Ngesi,’ he said.
The northern Free State faction was not invited, highlighting Magashule’s position as a political minnow, at least as far as the ANC’s top brass were concerned. It also clearly signalled which of the two Free State factions the national leadership would prefer to work with once the ANC came to power.
At the ANC’s first national elective conference after the unbanning, held in Durban in 1991, the Free State’s northern and southern regions were represented by two separate delegations. But seeing as the party envisioned only one structure for each province, it was clear that the two bodies would eventually have to merge to form one Provincial Executive Committee (PEC) in the Free State. Come 1993, Magashule
and his faction were hard at work laying the foundation for their eventual ousting of the Lekota bloc.
Magashule had grasped early on that ascendancy within the ANC had little to do with winning the support of the general population. Instead, the road to the top was built on the very foundation of the organisation’s power structure, namely its branches. ‘If you control enough branches, you control a region,’ explained a source who worked with Magashule in the early 1990s. ‘If you control enough regions, you control a province. And if you control a province, you get a seat at the big table.’
Gangster State Page 5