Special Hearings — Mandela United Football Club Hearings — 1997-11-24

PROCEEDINGS ARE OPENED WITH A PRAYER: .

CHAIRPERSON: Good morning.  I welcome you again very warmly to this, the fourth day of this hearing of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.   I thought there  were five of you and now there are four and now there will be three and then there will be two.  But good morning members of the, as you say, now defunct Mandela Crisis Committee.  You know that you are still under oath and we are certain that you will assist us in delving to discover the truth and that you will do so as it were unequivocally with fairly straightforward answers so that we can allow you to stand down as quickly as possible.  It is actually in your hands.  Thank you very, very much.   Hanif are you ready?

MR VALLY: Good morning, Arch.  Yes, we are ready but I notice that the gentlemen and Sister Bernard don't have the transcripts on the desk.  We will be referring both to the transcripts and Rev Storey's memo so if you just want me to quote, if you are happy with that, I don't mind.

FRANK CHIKANE: Chairperson, with your permission we need to formally register the apology of Dr Beyers Naude.  We discussed his circumstances and I agreed that we could in fact let him not come.

MR VALLY: Yes, thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: Of course I mean if there are any questions that you think, I mean there are no sort of direct questions which you can't answer which will be answered by him.  Thank you very much.

MR VALLY: I am just going to back to one issue.
Yesterday when we began and I quoted you from page 66 of the second section 29 I quoted the statement by Mrs Madikizela-Mandela when I asked about the report to the then president of the ANC, Mr Oliver Tambo.  Her response was as follows:
"With deep regret that document is not owned even by the president, ex members of the Crisis Committee.  I spoke to the present minister of safety and security Sidney Mufamadi.  I spoke to Aubrey Mokoena who is the deputy speaker of the house ..."

CHAIRPERSON: Can you just tell me what page is that please?

MR VALLY: Page 66, second section 29.
"I spoke to Mr Aubrey Mokoena who was the deputy speaker of the house to try and establish the  authenticity of the so-called document from the Crisis Committee.  Both of them have no knowledge whatsoever of your fictitious document which is so obviously from Stratcom which is what they used to do and have admitted publicly.  You are questioning me on a document which was not even drawn by the Crisis Committee, even during those apartheid times.  You are free to access that information directly from them.  They know nothing about that document and Sidney Mufamadi went so far as to say to me did I not recollect that by the time they are supposed to have issued that so-called document the Crisis Committee had already ceased to exist, it had been dissolved".
Now there was a response to it from both Mr Mokoena and Mr Mufamadi.  I just want to ask some pointed questions on their response.   The first question is as follows.  Did what Mrs Madikizela-Mandela alleged transpired actually transpire and secondly - maybe I should get that response before I follow it up with a question.

MR MOKOENA: Chairperson, commissioners, my name is Aubrey Mokoena.  Yes, that did transpire.  Mama asked me that question about three weeks ago at the ANC policy conference in Midrand.  That did transpire, she did ask the question.   Or it could have been about - no, not three weeks because there were two conferences.  The first one, ja.  It could be about two months.

MR VALLY: If I could follow this up with Mr Mokoena.  I want to show you a document.  I thought I heard you say yesterday that the document that you were referring to as the Stratcom document was in fact the document allegedly prepared by the mass democratic movement.  Is that the document which you call the Stratcom document?

MR MOKOENA: No, no, no I am not referring to the Stratcom document.  I am referring to the fact that she asked me a question about the document that was purportedly issued by the Mandela Crisis Committee and in my mind I thought she was referring to the statement that emanated from the meeting which was held in Dobsonville which ultimately came up with statements, with resolutions that were hostile towards her.  Now that nobody must you know deal with her et cetera, et cetera.   So in my mind I thought she was referring to that document and I say that now the Crisis Committee does not own that document and we didn't engineer that meeting and that is consistent with our
submission.  So there was no concurrence of minds concerning the common reference of that particular document.

MR VALLY: You do confirm annexure C, Mr Mokoena, to your submission.

MR MOKOENA: Sorry?

MR VALLY: You do confirm annexure C to your submission.

MR MOKOENA: Well that is part of our submission, yes.

MR VALLY: And when you were referring to the Stratcom document that you mentioned to Mrs Madikizela-Mandela what were you referring to?

MR MOKOENA: I didn't use the word Stratcom.  I was referring to the fact that the document that I thought she was talking about was that one which basically was (indistinct), not this one which is part of our submission.
MR ?: I think the difficulty there is that in your response to a pointed question that was saying when a document in the section 29 enquiry was presented to Mrs Mandela she referred to that document as a Stratcom document and your response seems to say if she was saying that document was a Stratcom document she must have been referring to the Dobsonville document.  Do you understand what our difficulty is?  You were asked a pointed question.  We presented a document to Mrs Mandela at the section 29 enquiry which we alleged was a document owned by the Crisis Committee.  Do you follow?  And what the question put to you was that her response to us was that you as the then Crisis Committee did not even own the document, you didn't even know about it.  And what she was wanting to establish was whether her response was correct
in saying a document which we presented to her as your document was in fact not owned by you.  Now your response was confusing.  It certainly confused me.   Because you went on to say, you were talking about two different documents and in fact she must have been referring to a document emanating from the Dobsonville meeting.  Now there are two things here.  Is it true that what Mr Vally presented to her as your document is that in fact your document.  I heard Mr Mufamadi and he seemed to contend that that is so.

MR MOKOENA: The document that is presented here is part of our submission, it is our document.  But yesterday when the question was asked I explained that when Mama asked that question she did not use the word Stratcom.
MR ?: No, no, no.

MR MOKOENA: And that is what must have caused the confusion because the (indistinct) Stratcom did not come from me at that time.
MR ?: Let me ask the second question.  Was the Dobsonville document you alluded to in the context of time to respond to the question, to your knowledge a Stratcom document?

MR MOKOENA: No, the Dobsonville meeting document was not the Stratcom document, it was a document released after a meeting was held.
MR ?: Now our difficulty is then did you have any basis to link the question that sought to confirm whether or not she was correct in saying your document was a Stratcom document with the Dobsonville document?   Where is the link between these two documents?

MR MOKOENA: You see the point is this, that the reference
of Stratcom is new to me.  Just like it came for the first time to us yesterday and then that caused that we should have this adjournment because we never knew that there was reference to the fact that that document was a Stratcom document. 
MR ?: But then why did you link it to that?