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

EMMA NICHOLSON: Thank you very much.  May I add two points that the book production which is written by a leading journalist based in South Africa was carried out in a period of time that allowed the journalist very little time with Mr Cebekhulu, and unfortunately because Mr Cebekhulu was in Sierra Leone it was not possible for the author to vet the book with Mr Cebekhulu.  This was a pity because we had planned that it would have been co-authored but that was not possible without having both people.....(side A ends)
 ...over the words Bathroom and Toilet shower, Mr Cebekhulu told the lawyer in London, consistently using the word bathroom, I'm afraid that it was a misunderstood word, I recall him being invited to explain that it was bath in the room, he said no, a bathroom. And that is the clear point on that.

UNKNOWN: Now we are just about to adjourn, but I have a panel and I'm going to instruct the panel that they have one question each if that is entirely necessary.  It is not necessary to ask any questions but if you do have any, you have one question.  Mr Ntsebeza.

MR NTSEBEZA: Thank you Chair.  My question is going to be to you Baroness Nicholson.   You have become acquainted with the contents of the book, Katiza's Journey, and at the time that the book was launched in this country there was also a documentary.  And I don't think it has been canvassed properly how you explain what appears to be two different statements with regard to the role or otherwise of President Mandela in the kidnap or otherwise of Katiza Cebekhulu, and I think we owe it to you being present here to assist us to clarify the averrments that are in the book.
 On page 207, the book states and purports to have a quote from you in the following terms

<UNKNOWN>: "It was clear to President Chiluba immediately from the government records that his predecessor had acted in the belief that Nelson Mandela had authorised the kidnapping and transportation of Katiza Cebekhulu to Zambia.  The records told him that Kenneth Kaunda was requested to take Katiza Cebekhulu out of circulation when he Katiza arrived in Zambia.  Six years later Kaunda would admit to Emma before a television camera, that the State papers revealed the possibility, albeit without formal proof, of Nelson Mandela's involvement."
Now that's the one part.  
 The other part is where the book deals on page 270 with yourself, I think the quote is

<UNKNOWN>: "Emma Nicholson, Nicholas Claxton's inside story, Tim and I...",
 and I would assume I is Bridgeland,
"....approached Kaunda and requested a TV interview.  Kaunda recalled the Cebekhulu case and Emma asked him whether Nelson Mandela had told him why he wanted Katiza Cebekhulu here and out of South Africa.  He didn't give me any reason at all replied Kaunda, what I did was to work on trust.
 How did he get the message from Mandela to give safe haven to Katiza to Zambia?  That came through Oliver Tambo, the ANC's leader in exile and he said that Nelson Mandela wants this man out of South Africa, he said he must go by what Nelson has said about him.  And so he took that on trust and that's how the young man found himself in trouble." 
Now if you are able to reconcile if it is possible, the first page number is 207 and then the other number page 270.

EMMA NICHOLSON: Yes.

MR NTSEBEZA: ...that in the wake of the documentary and this book, the President had been constrained to issue a statement in which he explained his position, but we'd like to hear from you in which you are attributed with some of the averrments here?

EMMA NICHOLSON: Yes, I can clarify this and thank you for asking me.  I think it's best if I speak with no notes and merely tell you what happened, but I preface my comments by saying that the explanation came from Kenneth Kaunda himself that I have a record of that interview, not word for word, but I have the questions I put to him, the answers he gave me, and I stayed on a further hour after the interview was complete.  And therefore I understood the full picture.
 Please recollect that I saw President Chiluba on the first day that he became President of Zambia for the first time.  In fact I was his first visitor.  I was there at 9 o'clock  in the morning and I received the name of Katiza Cebekhulu at about five to nine as I was leaving my hotel, and I want to point out here, that I had no knowledge of him, no knowledge of the case, I knew nothing about any of this at all.  I merely, with some difficulty, because it was a complicated name for somebody from my language, I with great difficulty wrote down the name and put the name to President Chiluba.
 When President Chiluba had authorised a search and the search had proved successful, which was some hours later, President Chiluba told me that the record, the government record which he then had looked up, because he hadn't expected to find a South African national in a Zambian jail, those were his very words to me, that the records appeared to show, that the order to take Katiza Cebekhulu out of South Africa and into Zambia purported to have come from President Mandela who was not of course then president.
 I took that comment for what it was worth and made the assumption that either somebody was using the leader's name which in politics is not just a daily but an hourly and a minutely occurrence, everybody always says they're doing things in the name of their political leader, frequently it isn't so, or if the order had come from Mr Mandela, I reached the immediate conclusion, that it had been an excellent thing to do because if that was so, whoever had given the order, as far as one can tell from the story, that saved his life, because this young man was saying if had he stayed in South Africa, he would have been dead.  Therefore I gave that point no rating at all.  In fact it was of such unimportance to me that I did not mention it, that the journalist who wrote the book until I think it was early June or late May 1997, because it had not seemed to me to be of any value at all.  If it wasn't President Mandela somebody had done this young man a good deed.  If it was President Mandela, well he had done the good deed, and so much the better.  It was of no value to me.  What mattered to me was finding him somewhere to stay.  And I think that if you enquire from the journalist you will discover that I told him, I just let it slip in, I think the middle of May, or late May, early June in 1997, it was something of so little consequence to me. 
 However, both the journalist and the film producer, I am sure they will confirm this, they are both men of high integrity, thought this was very important, and therefore requested me to ask President Chiluba again and requested me to ask former President Kenneth Kaunda.  I should explain that in order to make the film we spent three days at the end of May in Sierra Leone, just as Sierra Leone was blowing up and went on to Zambia in a separate trip, several weeks later to clear up the ends and the bits and pieces of the young man's stay in Zambia.
 However, it was not proper for me to ask President Chiluba. Our 1991 discussion was history and what we discussed there is on the record, is available and can be talked over, I am sure, with him as well.  I did have a meeting with President Chiluba and it was a private, off the record confidential discussion with nobody present, certainly no journalist and no staff and ...(intervention)

UNKNOWN: Sorry to interrupt you, are you talking about President Chiluba now or Kaunda?

EMMA NICHOLSON: I said President Chiluba.

UNKNOWN: In private, off the record?