Special Hearings — Mandela United Football Club Hearings — UNKNOWN

UNKNOWN: I am giving you, Mrs Madikizela-Mandela, I am clearly setting out a whole series of incidents.  I am setting out a direct instruction from Mr Nelson Mandela, I am setting out wake up calls regarding the burning down of your house, I am setting out what the Mandela  Crisis Committee advised you to do.

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: Thereafter yes.

UNKNOWN: After your house was burnt down?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: Yes.

UNKNOWN: After all this, because Mandela Crisis Committee was formed, it was coming to you after July 1988, up to February 1989 you are still moving around with a group of young men staying at the back of the house, and you still tell me that you had no control over them?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: Yes, I saw no reason whatsoever to do that at that stage, that was in fact based on the same perceptions, distortions which have brought us here.

UNKNOWN: Are you saying that the complaints and the allegations and the very strong statements made about the actions of the Mandela United Football Club and the youth associated with them, are still just perceptions?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: The period you are talking about, yes, they were.

UNKNOWN: Today?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: You can say that after the so-called kidnapping of the children, yes of course, there was a problem.

UNKNOWN: I am talking about today.  Do you see this as just perceptions or do you see it as having been a serious problem?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: You were referring to those perceptions of that time?

UNKNOWN: All right, I am talking about today?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: Of course there were problems.

UNKNOWN: Very serious problems?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: Yes, there were problems.

UNKNOWN: Let me go on.

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: Lives were lost.

UNKNOWN: We have talked about Charles Zwane being sentenced to imprisonment for nine murders.  Do you remember Wilson Sibilwane?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: Do I remember him?

UNKNOWN: yes.

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: Yes, of course I do.

UNKNOWN: Was he one of the youths who used to come to your house?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: He was one of the youths who actually formed the Football Club.

UNKNOWN: Do you know that he is serving a sentence for armed robbery?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: He is not serving any sentence for armed robbery now, he is actually in the audience here.  This is why I say let us get our facts straight.

UNKNOWN: Mrs Madikizela-Mandela, please don't play around.  You know he has just got amnesty for that.

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: I am not playing around.

UNKNOWN: Are you aware he got amnesty for that?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: And I will not tolerate you speaking to me like that.  I will not.  I am trying to give you answers to the best of my ability.

CHAIRPERSON: Excuse me Mrs Madikizela-Mandela
 I don't want to clear this place, but if you continue to do that, I will have no other option.  I don't want you outside of here, but this hearing is going to be carried out conducted with dignity.  And I am in charge here.
 I don't want to use the powers that I have.   If you do that again, I will have both of you sitting at the back there as I can see, and maybe innocent people involved, but I will clear that section.  Please don't, I kept saying tempt me.  I want you to remain here, I want you to be here. But this has to be carried, conducted in a dignified fashion as it has up to now.  Do you understand that?  Thank you.

UNKNOWN: Thank you Archbishop.  Are you telling me that you were not aware that Mr Sibilwane who has now got amnesty, was in prison for armed robbery?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: I didn't say I wasn't aware.  I thought you said at present he is serving a sentence for armed robbery, that is why I said he is in the audience here.  He was serving a sentence, the details of which are not really known to me.
He could have been serving a sentence for robbery like many other hundreds of youths who are doing so.

UNKNOWN: Are you aware that Absolom Badontsela is presently serving a 12 year sentence for armed robbery?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: I understand he is in prison.

UNKNOWN: Are you aware that he was one of the youths who was associated with or living at the back of your house?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: I am aware he was associated with the youth there.

UNKNOWN: Now, I have set out a whole long list of youths who had been convicted of very serious criminal conduct.  Do you not think that the advice you were given by Mr Nelson Mandela in 1987, by the Mandela Crisis Committee in 1988, and I would assume by other persons to disband the Mandela United Football Club which meant that the youths who were staying at the back of your house, should not be allowed to stay at the back of your house any longer?  Why did you not take this advice?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: I did take the advice to disband the Club and that is my final answer Mr Chairman.

UNKNOWN: And when did you take this advice?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: As I have stated, when I did return from prison and I told them to disband the Club.  The fact that they continued wearing uniforms and continued with their kind of conduct which was alleged then, outside of my house, cannot be attributed to me.

UNKNOWN: Mrs Madikizela-Mandela, did you exercise no control at all over what happened in your house?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: I did not have any direct control over those youths who came to seek refuge in my place.

UNKNOWN: Mr Mandela, I believe advised you to disband the Club in April 1987.  I want to read to you from the submission by the Mandela Crisis Committee.  You must remember after Daliwonga students attacked your house, and burnt your house in July 1988.  This is what they've said, and I'm referring to paragraph 19.  The Committee insisted on removing what it called a bush, that was the Mandela Football Club, around the Mandela family within which agents of the party system were possibly operating.  To this end, suggestions were made to shift members from the Football Club from the family to an alternative venue or commendation to alternative venue of commendation.  These suggestions were made with a firm negative response from Club members and Mrs Mandela.  Mrs Mandela insisted that she had responsibility to protect, as well as take care of them.  She also insisted that the Football Club was important to her, since some of the members served as her Security personnel.   Are you saying that what they've said in this submission is not true?

MRS MADIKIZELA MANDELA: That  document was not compiled in consultation with me.  There are lots of (indistinct) in that document.  There was never a serious confrontation between the Crisis Committee and ourselves to the extent that there was a definite refusal.
 What we did state at the time, was the boys were there and securing themselves.  That is exaggerated distortion  must be attributed to the people who drew that report.

UNKNOWN: : I would just remind you that they did state that you did sit right there where you were under oath, for very (indistinct) people, Mr Aubrey Makoena, Minister Sydney Mufamadi, Sister Bernard (indistinct) and at one stage Dr Beyers Naude and Rev. Frank Chikane, where they presented this document to the Commission.

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: : Yes, you also did hear Sydney Mufamadi, denying the fact that in fact I had spoken to him.  So the facts about that document was that it doesn't necessarily mean all the facts there were accurate.   They refer to in fact the security problem.  He knew at that stage, because (indistinct) was in fact an informer, and he did not convey that information.   If he had conveyed that to me at that time, I probably would have acted as they stated.

UNKNOWN: : I just want to go back to the Seheri issue.  The Seheri trial.  I thought I heard you say that you were not at the trial.  Did you say that?

MRS MADIKIZELA-MANDELA: : I beg your pardon.