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

EMMA NICHOLSON: Yes.  And this in fact was not the topic of our discussion because the person to ask, which was the question I put to President Chiluba was that I was there with the film crew, would he mind if I went around a little bit and did some filming and also talked to Kenneth Kaunda.
 As a result of that I went off to see Kenneth Kaunda and took a list of questions to try to get to the bottom of the puzzle as to why he was in Zambia in the first place.  And I had a very, very long, two to three hour meeting with Kenneth Kaunda of which about a half hour I think, it may have been more, is recorded on video and a clip from that was used in the film.  And the video transcript is the intellectual property of the BBC and I can give you the details who to write to if you wish to have it.  I will, however, give you my very, very full note on the meeting.  And the key to the answer was that Kenneth Kaunda had not had a message from Nelson Mandela at all.  He had been asked to take Katiza Cebekhulu in by Oliver Tambo.  He explained to me that this was in a sequence of a long period of time during which he had taken in both freedom fighters and young men and I suppose women, who had offended the movement and were at risk in South Africa while their cases were being examined, and Katiza Cebekhulu fell into the latter category.  He said most of those young men were not in prison.  At any one time he had 60 or 70 of them, but he also at any one time have 15 or 20 in prison who had been so difficult and were such trouble, that they were better off protected inside the jail.  And there were also, he told me, many thousands of freedom fighters during that time whose training he organised with Moscow. 
 To go back, however, to the point at issue, which is the taking in of people in trouble, I said why were they in trouble?  He said, well you have to understand that towards the end of this period of freedom fighting in South Africa the movement became very suspicious of many, many people and often people were fingered on suspicion which was not valid.  Therefore the best thing to do was to take them out of the way while the case was examined, while the heat settled and then they could go back again.  I said, and was Katiza Cebekhulu one of those?  He said yes, he was one of those.  He hadn't offended the whole movement, but there was a small wing of the movement, there was a group of people who wished to have him killed.  And that is the answer.  I can give you the full record of the meeting.

UNKNOWN: Thank you.  Could you please have one question and keep it brief.  It's now eight o'clock.

DR RANDERA: Chairperson only one question to Mr Cebekhulu.  Mr Cebekhulu while I have been listening and trying to understand all the questions and your answers today there are two things that I have had difficulty reconciling.  One is that you say you joined Mrs Madikizela-Mandela's household in August.  Now both Mr John Morgan and Xoliswa Falati were asked these questions about whether they had seen you in the house prior to what happened in December.  Both of them said they had never seen you in Mrs Mandela's house.  John Morgan worked there, Mrs Falati and you can perhaps comment on that.
 The second one is ...(intervention)

UNKNOWN: Can I just one that - let's stay with that and you only ask him one question.  Can you just answer that?
Do you understand the question?

KATIZA CEBEKHULU: Yes I heard his question.  They are telling a lie.  They are lying.

CHAIRPERSON: Mrs Mkhize.

UNKNOWN: My question is directed to Ms Nicholson.  It's really about this book, I am seeing it for the first time, you will pardon me for that, but I just want to put a statement to you with the hope that I will get your reaction.  In my knowledge of science, scientists are under certain obligation, as if as a scientist or a researcher you have to produce a text you have a responsibility to examine your facts very carefully.  In this instance I am excited to see this text, but at the same time I have questions as to how much caution was taken to establish whatever is said, these aspects, given the fact that this is a document which is likely to go down from generation to generation?

EMMA NICHOLSON: Which document are you referring to please?

UNKNOWN: Well I have just heard here that you wrote a foreword and I assumed that if a person agrees to write a foreword to a book it goes with a certain conviction about the contents of what is in that book.

EMMA NICHOLSON: I am not sure that I have the question from you that you want me to answer.

UNKNOWN: The question really is how much accountability can you take in terms of having made sure that whatever is contained in this book affects - I take it to be one of the pre-conditions if you were to publish an article or a book, any, I am talking about production of knowledge.  I was lecturing for more than ten years at the university.

EMMA NICHOLSON: I beg your pardon for not completely understanding you.

UNKNOWN: Can I just ask you to hold for one moment.  It's just to save time.  Miss Sooka wants to follow-up along the same lines I think.

YASMINE SOOKA: I think that one of the problems that the Commission is facing is the fact that at the end of this it is supposed to make some kind of finding about gross human rights violations that took place, and the difficulty that we are sitting is that this book was published and it purported to be Katiza's story.  Now certainly through the cross-examination that has taken place here today there are issues of Katiza's credibility at stake and the difficulty we sit with is you have now added a further rider to the issue by saying that there was no time for the author to actually check the book itself with the person who is purporting to tell his story.  Now that immediately raises certain questions.  One, that a number of people are vulnerable to really very serious allegations.  They relate to murder and torture and violence which the Commission, through its Act construes as gross human rights violations.  Now there was no cross-referencing  in terms of what you said that Katiza didn't proof-read the book, but the book was published, it was launched quite spectacularly with the book launch and in London, in South Africa was shown on our TV screens at the same time and people's reputations are at stake.  Now the Commission is faced with a huge problem because in an afternoon session like this we can't really explore all of the contradictions and that the contradictions are left with us I think all of us are really sitting with a major problem.  And I have to ask, why was it necessary to launch this book then with such great haste, because we're really dealing with a really serious aspect of  our history and at the end of it I'm not sure how we're going to make a finding on what has been told us today.

MR NTSEBEZA: Can I follow this....(intervention clapping and cheering)

UNKNOWN: Order!  Order please, thank you!

MR NTSEBEZA: Can I just make a follow up on the same point please Mr Chairperson?

UNKNOWN: Ja but let's keep it brief,  I think the point has been made here.

MR NTSEBEZA: ..Nicholson are you going to use this book as an authentic document after these hearings?  That's a short question.  Are you going to use this book as an authentic document?  I'm also saying this because I've been in the field of education for a long time.  I read the articles  and publications of people before they can be published.  Those are the ethics of research and writing. Is this book standing as an authentic document fro this time on after this?

UNKNOWN: Right now you may reply please.