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

BISHOP STOREY: Around that time the, we had received messages, the day before the 14th, that the football team was out on the hunt and so we collected all the young people we knew had anything to fear, we thought, and we happened to be having a Ministers Retreat in a country place outside in the Magaliesberg at that time, and we brought all those young people out to join us there to get them out of Soweto, away from the risk.  The next day I received news of an attack on Dudu Chili's house where a woman and a 13-year-old girl died, and also news of the killing of one football team member.

MR VALLY: Can you tell us what happened on the 16th of February?

BISHOP STOREY: On the 16th of February, you will permit a comment.  On the 16th of February we saw some people bring together integrity, moral courage, and political courage all at once.  We saw a group of people take the costly decision of making a statement clearly distancing their movement from Mrs Mandela.  Nobody will ever know how much it cost them to do that and how hard it was for them to do that, and I've the greatest admiration for the courage which they displayed, and if only their courage had been upheld by other members of the movement, we wouldn't be sitting here today.  That was the press conference, sir, where the MDM called for a dignified distancing from Mrs Mandela.

MR VALLY: Bishop Storey, you say on the 15th of February that Winnie Mandela meets Nelson in prison.  He gags her from speaking with the press.  What's your basis for saying that?

BISHOP STOREY: Sorry, where was that?

MR VALLY: I'm moving back slightly, the 15th (intervention).

BISHOP STOREY: Yes.

MR VALLY: Where you say Winnie Mandela meets Nelson in prison, he gags her from speaking with the press.  What's your basis for saying that?

BISHOP STOREY: I'm not sure, I imagine it may have been reported to me by Mr Ayob.

MR VALLY: Let's talk about Saturday the 18th of February.

BISHOP STOREY: Yes.

MR VALLY: Can you report to us on your notes on that date?

BISHOP STOREY: My notes simply say that Mrs Mandela gave an interview that day to the City Press, that Mr Chikane had a five- hour meeting with her, and that one of the results of that meeting was that she agreed to disband the football team and that, at that time, there were rumours that Katiza was missing, and Frank Chikane told the press that he wasn't missing, but that he had been removed, that Frank had removed him to a sanctuary and, as part of that statement, I think he called for calm.

MR VALLY: Can you tell us about your notes on Sunday the 19th of February 1989?

BISHOP STOREY: Well, there was a call from the African National Congress in Lusaka not to shun Mrs Mandela, according to a report in the Sunday Times.  The City Press exposed a letter from the Crisis Committee which had been sent earlier to Oliver Tambo, to somebody called O T, who was obviously Oliver Tambo, and in this letter, as published by the City Press, there's confirmation, the Crisis Committee is reporting to Mr Tambo, and, in fact, gives details there of their visits to the Mandela home, their interviews with the abducted youths, which corroborated simply everything they had told me when they came back from those visits to the Mandela home.
 They also, in that letter to Mr Tambo, report on the fact that they had been able to break one of the youths and get an admission that this had been a kidnap and that he had participated in the beatings.  The Central Methodist Mission was sprayed with graffiti that day.

MR VALLY: That's fine, we don't have to go into that.

BISHOP STOREY: We won't go into the graffiti.  Some of it was very rude.

MR VALLY: Let's look at what happened on the 21st of February 1989, the same day, according to your notes, when Jerry Richardson and John Sithole appeared in connection with the abduction of four youths and the murder of Stompie.  Please tell me about the press interviews allegedly given by Mrs Mandela.

BISHOP STOREY: Well, John Ellison of the Daily Telegraph reported that Winnie Mandela had had a full interview with him at her home just before the police had raided and searched her house, and in this interview she alleged that Stompie is still alive, the body is not his.  He is a victim, she is a victim, of an orchestrated hate campaign by white churchmen.  The SACC plotted her downfall, someone wants to destabilise the country to make her husband's release more difficult.  The Black Democratic Movement is now infiltrated at the highest level.  Asvat was shot because he had evidence of Paul Verryn's sexual assaults, and I think John Ellison was asking me for comment, which I wasn't prepared to give at that moment.

MR VALLY: I want to go into one last issue.

BISHOP STOREY: Yes.

MR VALLY: On the 23rd of February 1989, Bishop Stanley Mogoba went to see ... (intervention).

BISHOP STOREY: Yes.

MR VALLY: ... Mr Nelson Mandela in prison, and he took a brief memorandum with him.  Do you have a copy of that with you?

BISHOP STOREY: I would like, I would be grateful, I've got it somewhere in these files.

MR VALLY: If you could briefly read out the ... (intervention).

BISHOP STOREY: Yes.

MR VALLY: ... memorandum as well as the response you got ... (intervention).

BISHOP STOREY: Yes.

MR VALLY: ... thereto.