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

AZHAR CACHALIA: May I proceed Chair?  Thank you.  I am an adult male residing in Johannesburg, I'm an attorney by profession and I'm currently employed by the government of South Africa as head for the Secretariat for Safety and Security within the Department of Safety and Security.  In preparing this statement at the request the Commission, I haven't come here on my own accord, I have come here at the Commission's invitation.  It is my hope that it will contribute to a better understanding of the tragedy really which is the subject matter of this inquiry.  The statement deals with the events leading to the issuing of a statement by the Mass Democratic Movement on the 16th of February 1989.  It was a statement which my colleague Murphy will deal with in greater detail but it essentially deals with the question of why the Mass Democratic Movement chose to distance itself from the conduct of Mrs Mandela and the Football Club.  It is however necessary for me to try and explain the circumstances which prevailed at that time.  A state of emergency was in force since June 1986.  During 1988 government intensified it's repression of leaders and organisations of the Anti Apartheid Movement.  In February of 1988 the United Democratic Front, COSATU as well as many of the UDF's key affiliates were effectively prohibited by government proclamation from engaging in any political activity.  In addition a prohibition was imposed on the receipt of any foreign money.  All our Soweto based affiliates were effectively restricted.  Virtually the entire leadership of the UDF was either in detention or on trial and those who were not incarcerated were given severe restrictions.  Comrade Albertina Sisulu and I were two such people.  Effectively my restriction barred me from participating in any political activity including my duties as national treasurer of the UDF.
 Now the number of detentions under both the emergency regulation and security laws was approximately five thousand that year.  Many were released but a core of one thousand remained.  In the Transvaal as it was known at that time the largest categories of detainees was students and community workers, as the State tried to contain the education crises and the rent boycott.  In Soweto large numbers of members of the Soweto Student's congress, Soweto Youth Congress, the Soweto Civic Association remained in jail. The ban on all outdoor gatherings remained in force under the Internal Security Act.  Other gatherings were banned or restricted under the emergency regulations. Areas like  Soweto were effectively under a political curfew.  Any political activity which escaped this net could not be reported.  Newspapers such as South, the New Nation and the Weekly Mail were temporarily suspended.  
 To say that it was difficult to operate to operate politically under these conditions was therefore and understatement.  It was just about impossible.  Despite this, the risk of sounding too cliched, the struggle continued.  Our instrument was the Mass Democratic Movement.  The MDM was in essence a sort of underground or informal organisation of COSATU and the UDF.  It was able to broaden it's scope of political influence over the country as it became apparent that the National Party really had no answer other than repression.  While detainees embarked on hunger strikes to secure their release, groups of MDM activists continued to use every conceivable subterfuge to meet in defiance of their emergency restrictions.  However as organisations were not able to meet formally the normal procedures used by democratic organisations namely mandates, proper recording of decisions and reporting back were often difficult to adhere to.  Our structures had therefore been weakened and our linkages with youth groups in particular became tenuous.  The youth and children of course bore the brunt of the State's brutality.  One commentator describes its effects in the following way. "The Detainees' Parents Support Committee reported solders picking children off the streets at random and holding them for several hours in police vehicles or in remote areas of the veld. The children were beaten with fists and rifle butts, whipped with sjamboks and subjected to electric shock treatment.  By mid 1985, thousands of unaffiliated youths lacking direction of cohesion, many of them badly affected by their experiences in detention, bore themselves as soldiers in the liberation struggle.  They formed groups of street patrols hunting down other trouble makers, hooligans and vandals.  Initially they confined themselves to situations they came across as they patrolled the streets.  Then disputes were brought to them to "judge".  The effect of these gangs on the community, particularly in Soweto was extraordinarily destabilising.  As evidence began to emerge that the police both tacitly and actively showed support for some of these gangs, the fear they generated increased.   All the township residents were horrified by the disorder and the challenge to their authority by some of these young thugs.  In some cases gang control replaced people's courts which really in their non-violent form have long been a traditional form of dispensing justice in some of our communities.  Previously street committees made up of respected residents, almost without exception, men who were elected by members of the few streets or blocks they represented settled domestic and minor disputes.  At their best they gave a direct speedy and local participation in the pursuit of justice.  Now they became personal fiefdoms and small power bases using extreme forms of punishment.  This is the climate Sir in which Mrs Mandela created her own personal vigilante gang, the Mandela United Football Club.
 I think my initial response when hearing about this Football Club was that it was inappropriate to use the revered Mandela name in this way.  Surely there were other ways that Mrs Mandela could assist youths. I however had no contact with Mrs Mandela since the end of 1987 when I joined a new law firm.  I had seen Mrs Mandela regularly before this when I practised in my previous law firm which also represented the Mandela family.  After this the precious little time I had outside my practice was used to keep the UDF or MDM structures alive.  I also had very little direct contact with the Soweto based structures.  I did however begin to hear very disturbing reports of what could only be described as the criminal activities of the Football Club.  There were many rumours that circulated.  In the absence of any independent means of verification it was impossible to separate fact from fiction.  There were however a few common themes which recurred. And there were three broad themes that I want to talk about.
 The one is that the Football Club often dispensed their frightening brand of justice which included vicious assaults in cases ranging from domestic disputes to those who crossed their paths and were branded as informers.  It was widely spoken about in the community that Mrs Mandela often directed these operations.  Secondly there had bees stories that children had disappeared from the Mandela home. It was unclear however whether they had been killed by the Club, the police or had left the country, but there were parents who continued to ask questions about where their children were and this caused a great degree of anxiety in the community. 
 The third broad theme was that the Football Club was infiltrated by the police and that some of it's measures actually worked for the police.  Some members of the community held the view that Mrs Mandela herself was working with the police.  This was because just everyone seemed to be aware that there were guerrillas and arms in the Mandela home.  Some of them had been involved in armed incidents in the township, some even ended up being arrested. In one case two guerrillas were killed after a shoot out with police for which Jerry Richardson was subsequently paid R10 OOO by the police.  A person associated with Mrs Mandela was convicted and sentenced and the guerrilla was sentenced to death following an incident in a shebeen which resulted in a person being killed.  There is Chairperson incidentally court records around all these cases.  There appeared to be no political motive which resulted in that person being killed.  
 Perhaps the most sickening case to my memory involved the abduction of two youths by members of the Club who were then brought to the  Mandela home where they were accused of being informers.  On one of them the letter