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

MR VALLY: I want to refer you to the second submission, the second Section 29 Inquiry I beg your pardon, page 79 and 80.  I asked, and I would like your comments on this issue please.  After I had raised the issues of the various statements by the message by the Mandela Crisis Committee to Mr Oliver Tambo and the statement by the Mass Democratic Movement, some of the issues I've put to you already.  I asked the question, and if you look at midway down page 79, let me read the whole part
"I put it to you that Mr Ismail Ayob came to you with a message from Mr Nelson Mandela about the same issue..."
we are talking about the Football Club,
"...on the basis of that I am putting to you, was the presence of members of Mandela United Football Club on your premises not an issue of controversy in the community?"
Mrs Madikizela-Mandela's answer was -
"I really do not know what sort of an answer you expect from me because there was - that's right up - there was that Stratcom exercise, all that information and from exercises they had decided to put it in place at the time, now you want me to give a view from a perspective of the communities, how the communities viewed me.  I am unable to say, I do not know what you actually want me to say".
 I start off saying something and Mrs Madikizela-Mandela continues -
"I was aware of all the...."
I am sorry I don't know if the transcript is bad but this is how it is phrased,
"I was aware of all the write up in the newspapers as has always been the case, even right up to now all the sorts of things that get said".
 I ask,
"Can you tell me in a yes or no was the issue of the members of the Mandela United Football Club their presence on your premises an issue of controversy?"
 Mrs Madikizela-Mandela answered,
"It is those people who felt that that was a controversial issue who would say that.  As far as I am concerned there was nothing wrong with the Football Club".
 And I start saying something and Mrs Madikizela-Mandela continues -
"And I am hoping that this in fact, Commission, is going to show us these notorious Football Club members, I am hoping they will appear before you here.  As far as I am concerned, I was concerned that was not my view".
 If you look a bit further and I mention various groupings of people on page 81 I talk about the Mass Democratic Movement which consisted of Cosatu, UDF, I talked about the statements made in Lusaka by the ANC.  I talked about the message which came from Mr Nelson Mandela and Mrs Madikizela-Mandela's response is,
"We would similarly quote to you how Stratcom decided to operate in those days.  We have a document here which can tell you precisely how they operated those days.  I am unable to tell from individuals who was who in the Stratcom fraternity, so I am unable to express any view on that view because this is my belief and this is what has been stated publicly".
 I need to ask the Crisis Committee as active members of the communities and various political organisations, was the issue of the Football Club and especially their presence on the premises of Mrs Madikizela-Mandela an issue of controversy or not?

SIDNEY MUFAMADI: It was a controversial issue.

MR VALLY: My final question, in view of what Reverend Chikane said about the community putting guards at his house, was the Crisis Committee and/or the individual members of the Crisis Committee, were they intimidated by Mrs Madikizela-Mandela?

SIDNEY MUFAMADI: Well this is perhaps one instance where we should be asked to speak one by one.  I was not intimidated.

SIDNEY MUFAMADI: I was not intimidated.

UNKNOWN: I think Mrs Mandela knows that there could never be the way that she could actually intimidate me.

FRANK CHIKANE: I was never intimidated.

MR VALLY: Thank you, I am through Mr Chair.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much Hanif.  Mr Semenya.

MR SEMENYA: Thank you Chairperson.  Can I in the first instance attempt to deal with various nomenclatures.  In the first place am I correct that Reverend Chikane, when you called various individuals you did not constitute yourself into a committee?

FRANK CHIKANE: That's true, I brought a collective of people who then in the process became a working group that got called a committee later.

MR SEMENYA: And am I correct that you did not necessarily constitute yourselves as a finite group?

FRANK CHIKANE: No it was a finite group, it actually remained the six of us in terms of the this particular operation.

MR SEMENYA: Finite, not in terms of intention, but it was the group of you who became responsible for what you had meant the group to do?

SIDNEY MUFAMADI: I would say that as our convenor said we didn't see ourselves as having a final say on issues and we didn't have a - I will go back to legal parlance, and I am a lay person, to say that we didn't have a locus standi.

FRANK CHIKANE: Chairperson just to be more direct about that question I will put it the way I understood it because I was the convenor of the Committee, I brought the comrades here into this issue and I believed we had a crisis in our hands and it needed a particular group of people.  And as you can see from their background, they were people who were involved who were coming from different - Release Mandela Campaign, Cosatu, Fedro, MUM etc, so I picked up people I thought had influence in the community to deal with the burning of the house, and they, because of the project of repairing the house ended up staying longer and becoming a formal type of committee with you know accounts being sent to it etc.

MR SEMENYA: What I was attempting to establish is you did not go about as a committee representing yourselves as a committee, even when people say we were talking to the Mandela Crisis Committee that's not how you presented yourselves to people as a committee?

SIDNEY MUFAMADI: No you are right, we did not present ourselves as a committee but when people called us a committee we didn't think that we needed to engage in debates with them about that issue.

MR SEMENYA: And even when you went and discussed with Mrs Mandela you did not announce your presence to say we are addressing you as a Mandela Crisis Committee, am I correct?

FRANK CHIKANE: I worked on the basis that that was understood, that it is a collective that's dealing with those issues.

MR SEMENYA: No I am just talking about the designation because these descriptions are the ones which in my judgement may be creating the confusion.  Did you say as we speak to you we speak as members of the Crisis Committee?

FRANK CHIKANE: As far as I am concerned I mean we didn't have to announce that when we did that.  The point is that we had a group of people, it wasn't the type of group with a constitution etc, that's not the issue, the issue was you needed a collective which could deal with the issues under questioning.

MR SEMENYA: Maybe what I am trying to establish will become apparent.  And your document seems to say that the designation was ordained on you by the media or words to that effect.

SIDNEY MUFAMADI: That's correct.

MR SEMENYA: Now again if we go back to the timeframe where this thing happened there was none of you people who were openly ANC members, is that correct?  Though all of us we knew but you hadn't projected yourselves that I am an ANC member, we must understand the context.

FRANK CHIKANE: Well how could we have done that at that time, it wasn't possible to do that.

MR SEMENYA: But it was also impossible for certain individuals who are young men to be MK cadres around the house of Mrs Mandela, is that correct?

FRANK CHIKANE: Ja they would not declare that they were, and in the same way no one would say I am MK, I am in the house of Mrs Mandela.