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

FRANK CHIKANE: I will answer the questions related to that matter and members of the now defunct committee will fill up on that.  If you look at our submission, submission
paragraph 6 up to paragraph 19 all of that deals with the matter related to the burning of the house and I do say there that I arrived at the house and found their house burning, felt the consequences of that would be grave and then I convened an urgent meeting of selected group of respected leaders in paragraph 9 in the community who if you look at the background I referred to yesterday were strategically placed in different organisations at that particular moment so it wasn't a random type of selection.  And the main objectives of this group as I understood it at that moment, and I convened it, was to reach out to the community before midnight to stop any reaction by the community which would lead to further violent acts and possible loss of life.  The second objective was to consider ways in which the Mandela house could be restored to its original state and then we indicate down that submission to say that we did brief everybody we thought would help us to understand why the house actually got burned and in the course of that debriefing we identified people who could be useful on the ground, not the national leaders but people on the ground in the area and we visited a number of houses that night, up to two o'clock in the night.  But if you look at paragraph 3 subsequent to - 13, I am sorry, paragraph 13, subsequent to this a visit was also made to the Daliwonga High School as it was alleged that some of the children from the school were involved in the burning of the house.  That was the reason we were trying to reach out to everybody else and the committee members had occasion with the assistance of the principal, we talked to the principal, the teachers, the SRC to allow us to address the students and we addressed
the entire student body of Daliwonga High School.  The committee appealed for calm and was given an assurance that there would be no offensive action initiated from that school.  We wanted an assurance because we didn't want to see more violence in that situation.  If you continue with that text it then deals with the arrangements for security guards for the house.  The two houses and the group which ended up being called committee managed the process of the reconstruction of the house and Mr Aubrey Mokoena...

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, I just want to know, sorry, just one tiny thing.  You did all these things and Mrs Mandela didn't know.

FRANK CHIKANE: She knew that this group was in operation because we interacted with her.  At the beginning as I said it wasn't called Mandela Crisis Committee.  Later in the documents you realise it was called Mandela Crisis Committee.  But we operated - it was quite an operation to - look I have a letter here from Beyers Naude for instance, a note which is sending an account to the Crisis Committee, which says you know there is an account for the security guards addressed to Frank Chikane.  Frank Chikane, Mandela Crisis Committee.  And it attaches the account.

DR BORAINE: Mr Chikane, I am sorry to interrupt you but really we don't need to go into all that length.  All we want to know is there is an allegation that Mrs Mandela from herself didn't know about this committee and either you worked with her or you didn't. That is all we want to know.  We have read your report.

FRANK CHIKANE: Chairperson, I think she knew we existed.
Whether it was called Crisis Committee or whatever but this group existed and handled matters which affected the family at that particular moment.

MR NTSEBEZA: In particular you came into existence as a response to the burning of her house.

FRANK CHIKANE: Exactly.  In fact all the other issues, you know, Stompie and the young people were after the fact.  This was really, the burning of the house was the reason for this group coming together.  The rest of the others, as we referred in a later paragraph where other responsibilities are assumed during the course of our handling the family matters.

DR BORAINE: Thank you Reverend Chikane.

MR VALLY: If we could go on.  At the bottom of page 2 of your submission you say in the sentence to that paragraph, the first sentence
"A house of one of the most respected leaders of the people was on fire.  An extreme anger was written all over the faces of the people who came to witness this deed".
Can you explain when you talk about the anger, was it anger at the burning of the house or was it anger at the occupants of the house?  What anger are you referring to?

FRANK CHIKANE: I refer specifically to the anger of the people I found around the house.  Remember that the people who were around were just community members who saw Mandela's house burning and came around there.  Didn't know the circumstances but were just angry that their leader's house is burning.

MR VALLY: So they weren't angry at the occupants of the house, they were angry at the fact that the house was
being burnt.

FRANK CHIKANE: Ja, that is what I understood.

CHAIRPERSON: Sidney you appear to - you seem anxious to say something.

SIDNEY MUFAMADI: The problem is that we have got only one microphone and we have to ...   I am sorry that I will take the Commission back a little bit just to make the point that after we were asked by Reverend Chikane to get together and we were briefed about the problem, indeed we did talk to a number of people who we thought could help us understand the origin of the problem.  That, as we say in the submission, includes members of the Mandela family.  I remember quite distinctly that we spoke to Mrs Mandela and we spoke to Zinzi Mandela.  We spoke to young boys who were said to be members of the Mandela United Football Club and it was during that consultation that we were told that the people who were suspected to have been responsible for burning the house were students from Daliwonga, which will then explain why we subsequent went to Daliwonga to speak to the students.  We felt it necessary even before going to Daliwonga High School to seek the commitment of in particular the boys who were introduced to us as members of the Mandela United Football Club, that there was going to be no attempt at retaliating.  Because if we were going to talk to the students at Daliwonga we should then be able to say we have the commitment of members of the Mandela United Football Club that there will be an end to the conflict.  When we spoke to the students, even before we spoke to the students at Daliwonga, as the Reverend Chikane is saying we visited a number of - I wouldn't even remember some of
the names - but young people in the area, especially those who were known to be Cosas activists.  As you were talking to them you would find that yes people were angry for a number of reasons.  One of them was the fact that the house which belonged to the Mandela family was burnt.  But also people were expressing anger about what they considered to be shall I say bullying actions by members of the Mandela United Football Club, which would therefore explain from their side why some students would have been involved possibly in the burning of the house.  So indeed we spoke to the students, we secured their commitment that there was not going to be any offensive action initiated from their side.  We reported this back to the Mandela family, it was necessary that we report that back.  Because there was no way in which we could have achieved what we went out to achieve, namely diffusing the conflict, the tension if we did not report back that the parties to the conflict are willing to end the conflict.

YASMINE SOOKA: Would you not say that the actions of the Mandela United Football Club went beyond the mere bullying that you talk about and in fact bordered on the criminal, in fact was criminal?