Special Hearings — Mandela United Football Club Hearings — UNKNOWN

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.  I want to finish very quickly.  This is the last in a sense of our victim survivor hearings and apart from the State Security Counsel hearings and the amnesty hearings, we will not be doing any more of this public work.
 I want to express a very warm thanks to this centre, I want to say a very big thank you to the media, thank you for giving us the coverage that we have had.  We want to commend especially speaking of South African media, the TV Special Report and the radio team who have done splendidly.
 We thank the print media and we are glad for all the foreign journalists who have come so that the world can know of the process here.  And we hope that they might actually want perhaps to make contributions to the President's Fund from which reparations will be made.
 Thank you to the members of the legal profession who have represented the witnesses.  I want to say thank you to all the witnesses, to their families and to their relatives.  We have already expressed our appreciation to them when they came here.
 Thank you to the caterers, thank you to the briefers, thank you to the translators, to the technical staff who have enabled all of this to happen.  And I want to say a very big thank you to my colleagues, the Commissioners and Committee members, but especially also to the staff persons, Patrick (indistinct) and all of his staff, he has given me names, I won't run through those names here, but also a big thank you to Hanif Vally and the legal team, to our media people, John Allan and all of those people, you have done marvellously.
 Thank you to the police and all who have been responsible for the security.
 I just want to say that we have had a very close relationship with the Mandela's.  We live in the same street in what is sometimes called Beverley Hills, our children went to the same school in Swaziland.  They call me uncle and so on.
 Mrs Madikizela-Mandela is godmother to one of our grandchildren, who was baptised on the Sunday of Madiba's release.  When I bishop of Lesotho I used to visit Mrs Madikizela-Mandela well maybe once or twice in Brandfort.  I have immense admiration for her and there is no question at all that she was a tremendous stalwart of our struggle, an icon of liberation who was banned, harassed, under surveillance, banished, with her husband away serving a life sentence, she had to bring up two young girls.
 We can never forget her outstanding contribution to the struggle and her indomitable spirit.  Everything was done to seek to break that spirit and she was an incredible inspiration to many and her contribution to the struggle can never be again said, she was the most apt representative for her husband.
 We struggled to establish a new, a different dispensation characterised by new morality, where integrity, truthfulness, (indistinct), accountability etc, were the order of the day.  We say that crime currently, domestic violence, not caring for our environment, corruption, selfishness etc, which are prevalent are there because we need the antidote of a new moral order, a respect for authority etc.
 Some of us were devastated, it also found it exhilarating what happened during this hearing.  Devastated by the performance of some eminent leaders of the struggle.  The moral (indistinct) that came from them, was unexpected and shattering.  There were splendid exceptions who stood out in stark contrast, Adzar Cachalia, Murphy Morobe, the two Methodist bishops, Sydney Mufamadi.
 And  at the time I was deeply, deeply distressed after Mrs Sisulu's testimony and I can say that I am now in a sense over the moon over what has happened to rehabilitate someone I hold in the highest possible regard.  There have been extraordinarily moving moments such as Bishop Verryn's (indistinct) to Mrs Seipei and then to Mrs Madikizela-Mandela.
 We need to demonstrate that qualitatively this new dispensation is different, qualitatively morally, that we need to stand up to be counted for goodness, for truth, for compassion and not (indistinct) to the powerful.
 I acknowledge Mrs Madikizela-Mandela's role in the history of our struggle and yet one has to say that something went wrong, horribly, badly wrong.  What, I don't know.
 None of us can ever be able to predict for you have to keep saying, there but for the grace of God, go I.  Something wrong, such that many leaders had to be involved in seeking to deal with a particular problem.
 It was marvellous seeing Winnie as she walked hand in hand with her husband then, leaving the Victor Verster prison.  It was wonderful seeing them walk together on the lawn of Bishop's Court on the day after his release.  I was one of the church leaders who was asked to come and speak to you.
 I came all the way from Cape Town.  I don't know that we will ever know all the details of what it is that went wrong.  Many, many love you.  Many, many say you should have been where you ought to be, the first lady of this country.  What was I going to say to you had we had this meeting as a church leader, because when I came and we tried to have the meeting, it was impossible to have the meeting for you were not able to see us, you were studying you said at Wits.
 This is what I would have said to you, this is what I want to say to you.  I speak to you as someone who loves you very deeply.  Who loves your family very deeply.  I would have said to you, let us have a public meeting.  And at that public meeting for you to stand up and say there are things that went wrong, there are things that went wrong and I don't know why they went wrong.
 There are people out there who want to embrace you.  I still embrace you because I love you and I love you very deeply.  There are many out there who would have wanted to do so if you were able to bring yourself to say something went wrong.
 Because all these leaders couldn't have been so agitated and say I am sorry.  I am sorry for my part in what went wrong and I believe we are incredible people.  Many would have rushed out in their eagerness to forgive and to embrace you.
 I beg you, I beg you, I beg you please - I have not made any particular finding from what has happened here.  I speak as someone who has lived in this community.  You are a great person and you don't know how your greatness would be enhanced if you were to say sorry, things went wrong, forgive me.  I beg you.

MS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: Thank you very much and I would like to thank the panellist and I would like to thank you comrade Ntsebeza Sibya, I thank you all.
 Save to say thank you very much for your wonderful, wise words and that is the father I have always known in you.  I am hoping it is still the same. I will take this opportunity to say to the family of Dr Asvat, how deeply sorry I am.
 To Stompie's mother, how deeply sorry I am.  I have said so to her before a few years back, when the heat was very hot.  I am saying it is true, things went horribly wrong.  I fully agree with that and for that part of those painful years when things went horribly wrong and we were aware of the fact that there were factors that led to that, for that I am deeply sorry.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much.  We adjourn.

COMMISSION ADJOURNS: .