Special Hearings — Mandela United Football Club Hearings — 1997-11-28

MR NTSEBEZA: Thank you Chairperson.   As I think this, I will direct the question to you.  And I would like you to assume that I assume your bona fides and your credentials.
 You see, these particular hearings have been identified by the media, as of a nature that will make or break particularly Mrs Mandela, Mandela's political fortunes.
 And in a way, these particular TRC hearings rightly or wrongly, are seen as of a nature that would be used to further this or that other political agenda.  I can assure you of course that speaking from this panel, we haven't got a mandate to further anyone's political agenda.  But we can't ignore those sort of perceptions.
 And I can tell you that in the course of our having been asked by the ANC and by the President, to investigate the existence or otherwise of spies within the ANC, some of the submissions that we have got, seemed to suggest that there is within the ANC powerful condemning forces and these condemning forces are struggling for dominance.
 They were identified in opinion form, on the one hand as Africanists, on the other the white liberal cabal, the Indian cabal.  Now, you will appreciate why against that background, it becomes important for us, when you are under oath, and especially in view of the sort of call that you have made, that people who have a record of the nature that you have identified, should not hold public office.
 Now, to the extent that Mrs Mandela is identified for instance, to be in the Africanist group and to the extent that you might be identified to be part of the so-called Indier cabal(?), I think what is very, very important for us, would be to get a comment from you because I can almost see that there would be in furtherance of those submissions that we have, a view that says the real reason that you made that call, and that in fact you came to testify, is because you are furthering the agenda of the so-called Indier cabal for dominance within the ANC and that the TRC hearings, and this particular one, are being used by you to carry out that agenda, that is a perception.
 So I would like you to let us have the benefit of your comments because the call you have made is one we cannot ignore, because it has been made incidentally in various Commissions, by the ANC which have been annexed to their submissions to us.

AZHAR CACHALIA: You know, I don't want to go to talk about details of cabals, I am quite happy to do all of those things.  When you are involved in not only a political struggle, but when you are involved in politics, people are going to say all sorts of things.
 It is a ship that goes this way and that way and really if you get upset when people say you are part of this secret group or that secret group, it is almost is to misunderstand the rules of the political game.
 The rules of the political game is that there is a jungle there, and there are a few rules.  I have come here to tender my evidence in the full knowledge that there are going to be those out there, who questioned my credentials, who say I am part of an agenda.
 I would be a fool if I don't assume that people are going to say that.  I only hope that those who know me, and those who understand me, understand why I had said what I have.  And others must be free in the cut and thrust of political debate, to draw their inferences out there.

CHAIRPERSON: Yasmin?

YASMINE SOOKA: I think I have basically two questions.  The one is from the evidence of the witnesses that have testified here and both of you could choose to answer, it is quite clear that the Club's activities were taking place over a period of time, but there seems to be two turning points in the whole saga.
 The first is the burning of the Mandela house by the Daliwonga students, and of course the second is the abduction of the boys and of course the subsequent killing of Stompie.  Now the recurring theme which runs through the statements that were issued over that time, is that Mrs Mandela should be brought into the structures and brought closer.
 Now, my two questions are why did it take so long for any kind of action to take place, second is why could she not be brought into the structures and disciplined, she was part of some structure, even if it was loose?

MURPHY MOROBE: The question of which structure had authority over Mrs Mandela, is in fact the relevant question here.  Such that the input that we have made, did suggest that the nature of the relationship was not a straight forward one, in terms of where she fell, in relation to the mass democratic movement, in relation to the underground structure, etc.   Now there were all those kinds of sensitivities, it might well be that also by not following on these things, we also contributed to a particular perception and notion of a relationship also of either on her part and also on our part in terms of who should actually have the ultimate sanction.
 Now, it may well be asked as to why did it happen when it happened that the Crisis Committee in its report and the ANC in its response amongst the other things it does, allude to is the fact of her not being amongst those structures for purposes of discipline etc.  But it is a difficult question because you then come to a point where certain events happen, they prime you to begin to think and do certain things, but the rest before that, there was no real cause to actually do the things that we began to do in 1988 or 1989, in respect of Mrs Mandela, because the relationship, as I said, even in terms of personal relationships, it was a different scenario.
 In the 1980's there were state of emergencies, there was general chaos, so at some point cataclysmic events happened and then they primed everyone to say let's look at this, you know, and then they start acting.  Now it is a mood point as to whether was that the appropriate point, at that point or should it have been done earlier.
 Perhaps if you look at it, and if you have to criticise ourselves, we could then say that perhaps they should have been done earlier, it should have worked well for the benefit for the individual in question and also for the movement, for the people as a whole, so it is difficult to say whether that was the right moment or the wrong moment to have done what we did.

YASMINE SOOKA: Thank you.  The second question I've got relates to the question which the Commission will have to deal with through its Amnesty Committee, and that is the amnesty applications of the members of this loose formation, the Mandela Football Club.
 You, I think yesterday in your evidence alluded to the fact that they could also be construed as having been part of the United Democratic Front, and I think the question for us is, how are we going to distinguish between whether that was politically motivated, because could these youngsters, because of the kind or aura and political clout that Mrs Mandela enjoyed, have assumed that the acts that they were doing, were in pursuit and furtherance of the struggle?  I think that is the question that the Commission is going to grapple with quite hard, because all of those youngsters will have to establish that to in fact get amnesty.
 Just your comment on that please.