Special Hearings — Mandela United Football Club Hearings — UNKNOWN

YASMINE SOOKA: Mrs Madikizela-Mandela, before I begin, I think I want to preface what I am going to say with just a comment that I think all of us here remember what you have done, we appreciate where you come from and for many of us you were, in fact, one of the heroines of the struggle, but I sat through eight days of evidence and I think today, for me, was particularly painful and that is because I have heard the evidence and, from it, I think, some of the lines I can actually draw from the evidence is that, through your own sense of social responsibility, you gave shelter to homeless and, of course, particularly displaced youth, a football club was formed and by your own version, you, in fact, disbanded the football club on the instructions of your then husband.  The youths, however, continued to wear the uniform and, of course, basked in the aura of the Mandela name and the perception out there, therefore, in the community, was that the football club had not been disbanded.  From your own evidence, they accompanied you wearing football uniforms, even to the funeral of Dr Asvat in 1989 and I have heard your explanation today that those were the best clothes that they owned.
 Some of the youngsters who have come to give evidence did not stay with you, but many of them frequented the property and I concede that even those who did not stay with you, that there may be, amongst them, those who have been convicted of criminal activity.  Of course, we have amnesty applications for some of them, but when the Crisis Committee wrote the statement that they did and when they made their submission in paragraph 19 they say that they insisted on removing what they considered a bush around you, namely the Mandela United Football Club and I think that one can assume that the credibility of those persons, even then, was not questioned and they sought to inform you and warn you that you were surrounding yourself with persons of questionable character.  In fact, you yourself, during these hearings, have labelled the people who were associated with you quite closely, you have said that their evidence was ludicrous and ridiculous, but the suggestion of the Committee, in their own words, was met with a negative, a firm negative response from both yourself and the club members and in terms of their own report, despite their communications, despite the communication of the MDM and Oliver Tambo, you, in fact, refused to disassociate yourself from the club, but in today's hearing you say, also, that you are surprised at the fact that the father of one of the victims, Mr Sono, has joined, and I think you ruthlessly called it the charade that is taking place.  You call the report of the Crisis Committee exaggerated and distorted, you implied today that the MDM members who testified have an agenda, they had an agenda then and they have an agenda now and, in fact, in the Section 29 inquiry, you referred to their reports as Stratcom operations.  Now, I have a difficulty with that and I really have tried to understand why are you seeking to discredit people who I think honestly tried to come and give evidence.  I think for me that is a problem.  
The second question I want to put to you is that however you perceive the situation, these were youngsters who congregated around you.  You, in fact, took them along with you to many functions.  Do you not accept that you have to bear some kind of responsibility for their actions.  They, in fact, regarded you as their leader, their head of household and my question is what did you, in fact, do to control them or to make them accountable, because if your evidence is to be believed today, then everybody else who testified at this hearing is lying and, I am sorry, I have a problem, because I would like to believe that part of what we are trying to do is to establish accountability.  Now, you can say I am a non-South African, because that is what you said to me in the Section 29 hearing.

CHAIRPERSON: Order.  Excuse me, excuse me, please, please we are not at a show, it is not a show, I wish it were.  It is not a show and I am quite insistent, I give permission for clapping.  Please, I do ask that we do not, because that influences all sorts of things.  It can even be intimidatory and I do not want that.  I do not want these hearings to be, to degenerate please.  Mrs Madikizela-Mandela.

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: I do not know if I will be able to do justice to the desiccation just delivered.  I may not be able to contain everything you have said.  Yes, it is true that most of the witnesses who testified here were lying.  As far as I am concerned Richardson was lying.  As far as I am concerned the two youths who claim that I gave them money to kill Dr Asvat were lying.  As far as I am concerned Morgan's ludicrous statements made before you here are a pack of lies.  I can go on and on and on.  You are saying I am seeking to discredit people who were out to assist me.  They testified here, they drew reports, sent them to Lusaka without my knowledge, sent people to Victor Verster without my knowledge and the reports that were sent to Victor Verster were of a nature which affected the family to this day.  Reports which were based on untested information.
 You are saying people who wanted to assist me, are being discredited here.  In that regard I should imagine you are referring to the MDM statement by Adzar Cachalia and Murphy Morobe, who made a recommendation here.
 Adzar Cachalia who made that recommendation in his very last sentence, delivering that kind of sensational statement before this forum, you had a problem with that when I regarded such people who issued such statements, during those times.  You regard me as discrediting them.  I am an ordinary human being, they did things to me which were not acceptable.  It is not true that I totally refused to have the boys removed from my premises.  I have led evidence here to the effect that even though suggestions were made, that the boys must be placed elsewhere, that did not actually happen.  That process did not actually happen.   It was not as if they came with accommodation arrangements, which I totally rejected.
 You are talking about those painful times, you are talking about a society which was abnormal at the time, and things happened to those of us who were in the front line in the struggle.  Yes, I protected those children and continued doing so.  I let them wear those uniforms, yes, with hindsight, I should have taken the uniforms.
But my instinct of protecting the children during those times, when many South Africans were sitting comfortable in their houses whilst we fought a just struggle, it was during those times that these things happened.  You have a problem because the things, the fabrications that have been made here, are regarded by me as lies.  Yes, they are.
 Richardson could not be speaking the truth, you know that.  Morgan couldn't possibly be speaking the truth.  Those boys couldn't possibly be speaking the truth that I hired them to kill a close friend of mine.  I regard it as very tragic that you have to this day those perceptions about why certain people, some of them who were close to me, distanced themselves in certain circumstances.  I hope to deal with that question later on.  Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.

YASMINE SOOKA: Mrs Mandela, I think there was a last part of my question which was the question of accountability and I am wondering if you would address that please.

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: I have stated here that I will respond to father Mgojo at the end of this, and that will include that.

CHAIRPERSON: Alex Boraine?