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

FATHER MKHATSWA: Yes I take the point, but what I am saying is that had we had more information, concrete information about the physical situation of those boys I take your point that we certainly then would have insisted, that's why I made the example, the analogy earlier, that had they been - for instance had I been sent to prison to go and see someone who was in detention the first thing I would want to do was actually to go and see if at all they are even still alive at all, but I am talking about the situation you know the struggle against apartheid where we actually knew that people were dying, people were disappearing, then that I would have done because the context of it was quite different, but this was a family, an individual family that was keeping some children, and according to some people against their will and so on.  And quite frankly at that time, among the three of us, it did not occur to us that there was enough reason for us to demand to see them.  In hindsight perhaps you might say well maybe we could have done, but in life there are so many things that you do and when you look back you say oh had I only done it differently this would have been - but I mean we can't really....

YASMINE SOOKA: But would it be fair to say then that you actually failed in your pastoral duty towards these young boys because quite frankly even though you assured yourselves that they were well the reality is very much a different picture that has emerged?

FATHER MKHATSWA: Well we are all descendants of Adam and Eve and perhaps you might be right that in that particular instance we failed because in hindsight now perhaps you are quite right in saying that maybe we should have enquired more, so if you say we have failed in that instance well I would say yes, but that's your opinion really which I respect.

YASMINE SOOKA: Thank you Father.

CHAIRPERSON: Dumisa.

MR NTSEBEZA: Thank you Chairperson.  Father Mkhatswa unless you would like me to put to you the question that I put to Reverend Mbangula I would really like to get your reaction and let me make it very clear, I am not asking you to resort to the wisdom of hindsight, I am asking you if you are able to, to tell me whether in fact the reason, and I accept that you didn't ask, didn't want to know whether the children can be produced or not, I accept that, but I want to know whether on reflection the reason for this was not in fact that you were prepared to accept the ipse dixit, the say so, the ordinary say so, of the person you were dealing with for two reasons - she was your comrade and you had been in the struggle together, so she came with struggle credentials even as you visit her, she was a powerful leader, she still is in her own right, but more and above she was the wife of the Rolihlahla Nelson Mandela and that is no ordinary person by all accounts?

FATHER MKHATSWA: Commissioner Ntsebeza let me say that yes, she was the wife of one of our greatest heroes in this country and there was that aura, obviously, around her, there is no doubt about that and we also held her in very high esteem and regard because of that relationship.  But to say that we couldn't really answer her questions, I mean ask her questions simply because we thought she was such a powerful political leader I really wouldn't accept that.  And you yourself actually have said that one of the reasons was that she was a comrade and therefore it seems to me that it actually should have made it even much easier for us to talk to a comrade because you don't describe someone as comrade if for instance you are just scared of a person, that's not really a comrade.
 But also, let me finish up Mr Ntsebeza, earlier on I indicated to you, to this hearing, that it was not the first time that we had come face-to-face with Mrs Mandela and she was not really a stranger to us and we had never, certainly personally I have never had any fights with her or anything of the sort and so on, so what I am therefore saying is that I think the relationship when we went there was a good one, was a normal one from our point of view, which therefore would have made it easier for us to have actually made certain demands like wanting, like demanding to see the children.

MR NTSEBEZA: Let me put the same question differently.  You see you go there with a specific mandate such as you have described to establish whether the children are "healthy", to use your words and let's leave it at that level, to establish and all manner of your doing that is simply to accept the word of the person who is in charge of the household where they are kept.  Now I accept all the reasons that you have given and the fact that factually you never went ahead, all I am asking is it not so that while you were so ready to accept her word was because of who she was in relation to you?  You felt there was no need to interrogate further, you felt there was no need to call her word and assurance in doubt because she was a comrade, because she had struggle credentials and because of the other things that I have said?

FATHER MKHATSWA: Commissioner Ntsebeza, again to put the record straight, yes we went there to enquire after the - first of all the fact that the kids were there and secondly after their well-being, but we also went there to advise that the children be released.  So it wasn't really just a question of could interrogating and therefore after we were given that assurance quite frankly we felt that our reason for going there had been you know had been fulfilled.  But had our mandate been slightly different or at least our reason for going ...(intervention)

MR NTSEBEZA: I don't want to cut you short, that's not what I am asking, I am asking whether your readiness to accept a mere assurance when you went there with a specific mandate to establish a certain reality, was not your readiness to accept that not informed by the fact that you were quite prepared to accept the word of a comrade without further interrogating her, was that not the reason?

FATHER MKHATSWA: There was no, as I say, any reason for us to doubt her word at that time, but as you say later on alright events turned otherwise, but otherwise from our point of view I don't think it would be really even logically be true to conclude that this was the reason why we did not pressurise her.

CHAIRPERSON: Faizel.

DR RANDERA: Father Mkhatswa just to remind you again, as I did with Dr Motlana, prior to your going to see Mrs Madikizela-Mandela the church leaders had been informed about Kenny's statement, he had talked about how he had been abducted, that violence had been used, that there was a concern about Stompie Seipei, not only at that time but even when Reverend Mbangula came back from his holiday, so it's not only subsequent to your visit that you find out that events were not as you saw them at the time of your meeting, you had some information prior to your going to this meeting and I think that is what we are trying to understand and what we are trying to grapple with.