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

SIDNEY MUFAMADI: It was made public during that time.  I will just quote some of the - I mean, ja, well, it was reprinted in Sechaba,  which was the official organ of the African National Congress in April 1989.  Well, at least in Sechaba you can see the date as well.  1989, it was released - printed on February 18th 1989.
 I will read some of the sentences which I think may be of relevance to the point I was making earlier.  But it's so short that you might want me to read the whole of it. [Intervention] The statement reads thus:
"Recently there have been serious developments pertaining to the activities of the group known as the Mandela Football Club, which have raised great concern within the mass democratic movement and struggling people as a whole. The ANC shares the concern of the people, and has all the time tried to intervene to find an amicable solution to the problem.  In the light of reports about its activities in the recent past, our organisation, complementing the initiatives of leading personalities of the mass democratic movement, tried to use its influence to bring about the disbanding of the group."
The group being the Mandela United Football Club. 
"Unfortunately our counsel was not heeded by Comrade Winnie Mandela. The situation has been further complicated by the fact that she didn't belong to any structures and therefore did not benefit from the discipline, counselling, and collectivity of the mass democratic movement.  Under these circumstances she was left open and vulnerable to committing mistakes, which the enemy exploited.  One such instance relates to the so-called Mandela Football Club.  In the course of time the club engaged in unbecoming activities, which have angered the community.  We fully understand the anger of the people and their organisations towards this club.  We have every reason to believe that the club was infiltrated by the enemy, and that most of its activities were guided by the hand of the enemy for the purposes of causing disunity within the community and discrediting the name of Nelson Mandela and the organisation of which he is the leader. Our people should not allow this.  The ANC calls on our people to close ranks and exercise maximum vigilance against the vile machinations of the enemy.   Our position is that the problem arising from the activities of the Mandela Football Club can and must be resolved within the ambit of the democratic movement as a whole, both at local and national levels.  This must be done in the shortest possible time.  To realise this, it is necessary that Comrade Winnie Mandela is helped to find her way into the structures and discipline of the mass democratic movement.  It will be of paramount importance that she co-operates with all those involved in the resolution of the problem. We are confident that the mass democratic movement will open its doors to her in the interests of our people and the struggle.  There is a need to create a climate in which all problems facing the community, including the unfortunate death of Stompie Moeketsi Seipei, a committed young lion who has made an immense contribution in the mobilisation of our youth and people in the struggle, will be discussed to foster unity rather than let the enemy use them to achieve its ends.  The ANC takes this opportunity to convey its heartfelt condolences to the parents, relatives and community of Stompie Moeketsi Seipei.  It is with a feeling of terrible sadness that we consider it necessary to express our reservations about Winnie Mandela's judgment in relation to the Mandela Football Club, but we should not forget what Comrade Winnie Mandela has gone through and her immense contribution to the liberation struggle.  She has not only suffered the anguish of over a quarter of a century of separation from her husband, but has also experienced unending persecution at the hands of the regime such as banishment, imprisonment, torture, and sustained harassment over a period of more than two decades, bearing the name of Mandela, and in her own right she increasingly became one of the symbols of resistance to racist tyranny both at home and abroad.  We firmly believe, without prejudging all the issues which have been raised in relation to the problem, that whatever mistakes were made should be viewed against the background of her overall contribution on the one hand and the activities of the enemy on the other". Viewed in this light, we consider it important that the movement .....
(tape ends)
 ...will continue to work for the unity of our people and we have no doubt that all those who have participated in attempting to solve this problem have done so in the best interests of our struggle."
 Now, as I said earlier, we sent a report to Mr Tambo, we received a response through the same channels that we used in sending the report.  Subsequently,  this statement was issued by the leadership of the ANC.  
"One thing that became clear to us was that the ANC leadership in Lusaka was of the same view that there was a causal link between the unbecoming conduct of some of the members of the Mandela United Football Club and the machinations then of the enemy.   It was precisely because we had this impression that we tried what we considered to have  been our level best to persuade Mrs Mandela to allow us to help her disband the Mandela United Football Club, because, as this collective, we can't claim to have succeeded to persuade her to co-operate with us in that regard, and I must say that we regretted what we considered to be her apparent inability to see things from our perspective.  We believed that the football club was damaging to her personal integrity in terms of what people understood its members to have been involved in, and to the extent that there was a perception that she was part of the Mass Democratic Movement.  Indeed we thought that the fact of the continued existence of the Football Club impacted negatively on the fortunes of the Mass Democratic Movement.
 The statement by the leadership of the ANC, as we saw, it was appealing to members of the Mass Democratic Movement not to give up the attempt to solve the problems amicably.  We understood also that they were addressing an appeal to us as this collective not to give up that task.  Because if you look at our report to Mr Oliver Tambo, we were actually posing the question whether any useful purpose would be served by the continued existence of this collective and the work that we were trying to continue to do.
 We also interpreted this statement as addressing an appeal also to Mrs Mandela that she should co-operate with efforts that we were making, co-operate with efforts which the leadership of the ANC was imploring the rest of the Mass Democratic Movement to make. 
 Mr Chairman, I should not take your interrogation time. Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: : We are not coming to interrogate. Do we have any further inputs?