Winnie Mandela

by Anné Mariè du Preez Bezdrob

  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.

  Independent political journalist Max du Preez’s Vrye Weekblad had exposed a so-called Third Force, made up of elements of the police and military and working in close collaboration with Mangosuthu Buthelezi’s Inkatha Freedom Party against ANC supporters in Natal. Unlike Mandela and other ANC leaders, Winnie was by no means ready to renounce the armed struggle. She continued to wear her khaki uniform in public and made several statements about fighting for freedom. But the unsavoury nature of her trial had cost Winnie some of her political following. At the ANC’s Durban conference, she was elected to the national executive, but lost her bid to become president of the Women’s League. Soon afterwards, her powers as head of welfare were curtailed amid whisperings of financial irregularities involving the use of welfare funds to pay for trips, buy clothes and luxury gifts for Dali Mpofu, a young articled clerk she had met through the Mandela Football Club’s lawyer, Kathy Satchwell. Mpofu quit his job with the law firm and was appointed Winnie’s deputy in the welfare department, giving rise to fresh rumours that they were having an affair.

  In the whirlwind of events following Mandela’s release from prison and the start of negotiations designed to ensure a peaceful transition rather than a bloodbath in South Africa, the focus was constantly on him: what he had missed, how he had changed, his expectations of the future, his remarkably conciliatory attitude towards his white oppressors, his hopes and dreams. No one bothered to find out what Winnie needed and wanted, how her life had changed or what her aspirations might be. She had received almost no pu
blic credit or acclaim for the personal suffering she had endured, or the damage it had caused, or her phenomenal courage, and from the moment she was implicated in the serious crimes involving the football club, it was as though her entire past had been erased from the public mind.

  A chance meeting and short conversation with popular satirist Pieter-Dirk Uys in the early 1990s offered a brief glimpse into Winnie’s soul and state of mind. They were both on their way to Cape Town, and while waiting for the flight at Johannesburg International Airport, she recognised Uys. They had never met, but she introduced herself and gave him a warm hug. He was struck by the fact that she was smaller in real life than in photographs. They chatted amicably, and he told her he was on his way to a performance in his signature role of the fictional ambassador to the imaginary homeland of Bapetikosweti.

  Uys has a self-confessed passion for shopping bags, and had collected a fine selection from elegant stores in London, Paris, Toronto and New York, in which he always carries his hand luggage. While they were talking, Winnie asked him what was in the bag he was toting on that particular occasion. ‘Evita Bezuidenhout,’ he said, explaining that the bag contained the costume, wig and cosmetics he needed to transform himself into the imperious female character.

  ‘Do you know what is in my bag?’ Winnie then asked. Uys said no, and she answered: ‘Mrs Mandela. My husband has been awarded an honorary degree and I have to perform the supportive wife.’

  She said it with such melancholy that Uys asked if that was difficult for her.

  Winnie replied, ‘I’m out of practice.’

  He said she seemed lost and overwhelmed, and he felt real sympathy for her. However, from the moment she stepped off the aircraft in Cape Town and was surrounded by bodyguards and a welcoming, admiring crowd, she was ‘transformed into a kugel, and one almost lost all empathy with her’.2

  On 21 December 1991, the political negotiations that would shape South Africa’s future began in earnest. International observers monitored the process, named CODESA, with great interest. While there was bloody war in Yugoslavia and continued violence in Northern Ireland and the Middle East, the world watched with bated breath as South Africans moulded a peaceful transfer of power from the ashes of apartheid. But Mandela’s attention would again have to be divided between the crucial political developments and the high drama of his personal life. Xoliswa Falati, who had been living under the Mandela roof for some time, suddenly raised Winnie’s ire, and was kicked out. She took revenge by contacting the media and retracting every shred of evidence she had given in support of Winnie at their trial. She now alleged that Winnie had not only been involved in the torture of Stompie, but had ordered the murder of various other people, including Dr Abu-Baker Asvat.

  The media exploded in a frenzy of reports and speculation about both Falati’s sensational claims and the future of the Mandela marriage. Falati’s defection had opened a veritable Pandora’s box. Mandela was accused of cover-ups and interfering with the media to prevent publication of certain stories. The ANC announced that Winnie had been ousted as head of welfare. Mandela demanded that she be reinstated. Winnie continued to be seen in public with Dali Mpofu, and when she travelled to America against Mandela’s wishes, taking Mpofu with her, Mandela moved out of the Diepkloof house. To add insult to injury, Winnie’s driver, John Morgan, also retracted the evidence he had given, and told the Sunday Times that Winnie had not been in Brandfort as she claimed, but had, in fact, led the assault on Stompie Seipei.

  On 13 April 1992, Mandela called a media conference, and flanked by his oldest friends, Oliver Tambo and Walter Sisulu, announced that he was separating from Winnie. In a prepared statement, he paid tribute to her contribution to the struggle, but said that because of their differences they had agreed that a separation would be best for both of them. He said he was not parting from Winnie with recriminations, but embraced her with all the love and affection he had felt for her since the first moment they met. Tellingly, he referred to her throughout as Comrade Nomzamo, as though she was someone he hadn’t known very well, or perhaps signalling that he had already distanced himself from her.

  The storm had finally broken over Winnie’s head. She became increasingly estranged from the ANC leadership, which was baying for her resignation after Mandela ordered an investigation into the alleged misappropriation of funds in the welfare department. But the coup de grâce came via one of Dali Mpofu’s former lovers, who had somehow got hold of a letter Winnie had written to him, and gave copies to both the Sunday Times and the Sunday Star. The Sunday Times published it, unedited, on 6 September 1992. In the letter, Winnie angrily berated Mpofu for sleeping with another woman, referred to a deteriorating situation at home and the fact that she had not spoken to Mandela for months, and, most damning of all, mentioned ANC welfare department cheques that had been cashed for Mpofu.

  Four days later, Winnie resigned all her positions in the ANC, saying it was in the best interests of her dear husband and beloved family to do so, but ascribing the situation to a malicious campaign against her. A month later, Zindzi married Zweli Hlongwane, and Winnie organised a wedding reception for hundreds of guests in the posh Carlton Hotel in Johannesburg. Mandela attended the function but looked strained, and ignored Winnie. When he made his speech, he pointed out that all freedom fighters paid a costly price for their beliefs, since their private lives and those of their families were totally destabilised. One wondered, he mused wistfully, whether it was worth it.

  On the political stage, however, Mandela was the star act, although his decisions often infuriated one or other faction within the ANC. When he proposed abandoning nationalisation, he was accused of betraying the Freedom Charter, but his carefully considered pragmatism scored valuable political concessions, and by December 1992 FW de Klerk was all but ready to concede to the demand for simple majority rule.

  But for every step forward, there seemed to be at least one more major obstacle to overcome. On 10 April 1993, Chris Hani was assassinated by a right-wing Polish immigrant, Janusz Waluz, in a plot that included Conservative Party politician Clive Derby-Lewis. The senseless killing brought South Africa to the very brink of civil war. It was the Easter weekend, and Mandela rushed back to Johannesburg from the Transkei to intervene in the most potentially explosive situation since the 1976 student uprising. Hani had been the second most popular ANC leader in the country, and, in the aftermath of his death, violence did break out and dozens of people died, but it was Mandela, not De Klerk, who went on national television and appealed for calm. The people listened – and the world knew that South Africa had found its first black president.

  On 2 June 1993, the Appeal Court upheld Winnie’s conviction for kidnapping, but ruled that she had not been an accessory to the assaults. After ‘careful and anxious’ deliberation, the court reduced her sentence to two years’ imprisonment, which was suspended, and a fine of R15 000.

  It was all she needed to stage a political comeback, and by the end of 1993 the ANC Women’s League had elected her their president. Her detractors were exasperated, her supporters jubilant. Winnie was back, and not a moment too soon, from the ANC’s point of view. Campaigning for the first democratic elections began on 12 February 1994. The Inkatha Freedom Party, with a predominantly Zulu power base, and the Afrikaner Volksfront, which represented right-wing Afrikaners, announced they would boycott the election, along with the regimes still running the so-called independent homelands of Bophuthatswana and Ciskei.

  The Volksfront, led by former South African Defence Force chief General Constand Viljoen, formed a brief alliance with Bophuthatswana leader Lucas Mangope when ANC cadres launched a final push to make Bophuthatswana ungovernable. Mangope asked Viljoen to mobilise his commando of farmers and former SADF troops to put down the uprising in Mmabatho, but specifically told Viljoen not to include any members of Eugene Terre’Blanche’s ultra right-wing resistance movement, the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB). The AWB, however, gatecrashed what they saw as a
chance to make a last stand against the hated ANC, and by their bumbling intervention put paid to any credibility the white right might have had. In the process, three AWB members who became separated from the rest were shot in cold blood by a black policeman while the world’s TV cameramen and news photographers captured the murders on film. It was the end of Mangope, of the Volksfront’s tenuous alliance with the AWB and the right-wing boycott of the election.

  In Natal, however, the bloody conflict between Inkatha and the ANC continued, with thousands of people killed and tens of thousands displaced. On 28 March, Inkatha supporters bearing traditional weapons, including spears and knobkieries, marched on the ANC’s Johannesburg headquarters, Shell House. ANC security personnel, fearing an attack, opened fire on the marchers, killing eight. Yet again, the transition to a multiparty democracy and government of national unity teetered on the brink of civil war, but, against all odds, Buthelezi decided at the last minute to take part in the elections that ran over three days in the last week of April.

  On 10 May 1994, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was inaugurated as president of South Africa in the amphitheatre at the Union Buildings in Pretoria, seat of the apartheid government since 1948. At his side was his daughter Zeni. His estranged wife was not even seated among the most important guests from both South Africa and abroad. Jessie Duarte, who ran the Office of the President with Barbara Masekela, said her heart went out to Winnie. She had waited and laboured her entire adult life for this day, and, when it came, she was reduced to no more than a spectator, snubbed in the most public manner imaginable by her husband at his moment of supreme triumph. Duarte said attempts had been made to somehow include Winnie in the main party, but Mandela would not hear of it. In his inaugural address, Mandela said he had never regretted his commitment to the struggle, and was always prepared to face the personal hardships. But, he said, his family had paid a terrible price, perhaps too dear a price, for his commitment.