former vlakplaas askari joe mamasela and former liberation icon winnie madikizela-mandela as enigmas

Two of the most intriguing characters to appear before the Truth Commission were an idol of the liberation struggle and a killer of the apartheid state: Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and Joe Mamasela. She was a victim of gross human rights abuses. The apartheid government and its policemen harassed her, banished her to Brandfort in the Free State in 1977 for eight years and jailed her husband, Nelson Mandela, for a generation. Joe Mamasela, on the other hand, was a victim of both the ANC and the Security Police. His liberation movement accused him of being a police informer in 1979 and burnt his brother to death. The Security Police captured him at an ANC safe house near Pretoria, tortured him and tamed him as their "terrorist". But at separate and highly emotional hearings, both Madikizela-Mandela and Mamasela stood accused of perpetrating gross violations of human rights: abducting, assaulting and murdering fellow black South Africans. She denied the allegations. He admitted to them. Both refused to seek amnesty.

["Sedi lea kganya"]

As a young man in Soweto in the seventies, Joe Mamasela was an activist following the teachings of Steve Biko and Malcolm X. But he ended up as a member of the Vlakplaas death squad – maiming and murdering his own people. Mamasela was an askari, an ANC freedom fighter that the Security Police "rehabilitated" into their own lethal weapon. An askari with a passion for gospel and soul music who killed about 40 anti-apartheid activists.

…I am Joseph Tsepo Mamasela. Many killings, I was involved [in] as a person, as Joe Mamasela. I’m the only policeman in the whole country who has a dossier that has even the pictures of his victims because these things were troubling me, that I was used to kill my own people. I had sympathy for the innocent victims. I was driven by that sympathy. I perceived myself at this stage as a victim of both the security forces and the ANC. My own cause was to expose, if I get the opportunity, I must expose the dastardly, nefarious, nocturnal acts of both the ANC and the Nationalist Party. And I did precisely that. I have completely made up my mind that I’m sick and tired of being loyal to man. I’ve decided to be loyal to the Almighty God. I’m not loyal to any politician, let alone any human being. I’m loyal to my God. I was deceived. I was used like a condom and thrown out by both the white and black politicians! I don’t owe them anything!…

["Sedi lea kganya"]

From soul to gospel. From murderer to born-again Christian. Joe Mamasela was a big man, who walked in expensive suits and drove a red BMW. He was a strange apartheid killer. He was black. And he used the Truth Commission not to plead for forgiveness, but to challenge the authorities. "I’m not applying for amnesty. So prosecute me," he said. He remained an enigma. Victim and perpetrator. Loving father and murderer of children. He was also regarded as the "cleanest killer of them all". Zola Ntutu reports.

…In all my experience in this hellhole, I have never come across a thing that is called "clean killing". There is no such thing. It only exist in the minds of those who want to appear here as honest and decent gentlemen, who don’t want to subjugate other people into … into unnecessary pain. There’s nothing like that. People are killed brutally! They died worse than animals! And that is a fact. And their ideas is to inflict as much pain as possible. It was a sadistic, well-calculated method of killing people. And they know it. And I was part of it…

Joe Mamasela is part of the squad that beats to death three activists of the Port Elizabeth Black Civic Organisation in 1985 – the Pebco Three: Sipho Hashe, Champion Galela and Qaqawuli Godolozi. They are killed at the old Post Chalmers police station near Cradock in the Eastern Cape. Lieutenant Colonel Gideon Nieuwoudt interrogates Sipho Hashe, who tells him that "the ANC stands for a democratic South Africa".

…This reply, more than anything else, seemed to infuriate Lieutenant Nieuwoudt so much that he just grabbed an iron pipe and beat the poor old man several times in his head. And as he did so, all the people joined in. And the only thing he could [do to] help himself was just to scream out loud. I was then ordered by Lieutenant Nieuwoudt to stifle his screams, to put my hands in his mouth and hold it hard, so that his screams mustn’t attract the neighbouring farmers. Myself and Pete Mogoai, we struggled to stifle the old man’s screams. While all this others that I’ve named waded into the old man with kicks, punches, fists … uh … sticks. As Lieutenant Nieuwoudt was beating the old man several times in the head with the iron pipe, I noticed that blood was oozing from the old man’s nostrils and ears, as well as the mouth. And … uh … I saw the old man’s eyes turning into white pupils. They were turning. It was as if he was fainting or just about to die. The beatings went on and on until I saw the old man lying prostrates on the ground with blood all over his head and … and face…

["Moleteng wa datau"]

…During the assault of Champion Galela, something brutal happened because Warrant Officer [Gert] Beeslaar took out the testicles of Champion Galela. He squeezed them very hard until they became the size of almost … uh … golf balls. And then with his right … right hand, he punched them severely, very hard. I saw … I saw the man changing the colour of his face, becoming pale and bluish, and there was some yellowish liquid that spurted out from his genitals…

["Moleteng wa datau"]

…and that was the most brutal thing I’ve ever witnessed in all my life of hell in Vlakplaas. I stayed for a long time in this devil’s belly. I know how it looks like. But I’ve never seen anything like this in all my life as a prisoner of war of these people. I’ve never seen anything like that. It was the most dehumanising experience of my life…

In 1981, Joe Mamasela is "plunged into the belly of the devil", as he puts it. Mamasela and his fellow askaris stab to death Durban-based human rights lawyer Griffiths Mxenge. "But Mxenge was innocent," says Mamasela.

…Tell me, Mr Mamasela…

Cobus Booyens

…if Mr Mxenge, you regarded Mr Mxenge as an innocent person, why did you take part in his killing?

I was just a mere askari. An askari is a prisoner of war!

Mmm…

I was just told to … to do things. Askaris were expected to carry out instruction, not to question them. If you questioned the instructions, you get killed.

Well…

So I … I … I … I had … I had no alternative but to do as I was told.

This man that regarded Mr Griffiths Mxenge as a complete innocent. The man is an attorney. He’s well known in Durban. Why didn’t you warn him that people are plotting to kill him?

Oh my God, there we go again! I couldn’t warn Mr Mxenge. I did not even know of his existence prior to my getting to Durban! I didn’t even know him! I was just whisked to Durban. I was given the photos, I was showed the photos and they said: "Kill the man." And then we killed him! There was nothing I could do!

You could pick up a telephone and warn the man.

Telephone where? From the police station? No, no.

In the big city of Durban, there are no public telephones?

Mr Booyens, don’t talk like a foreigner. You are a South African and a white South African, for that matter. And you know for a fact that during those days, black people were … were at the mercy of white people! There was nothing I could do! Even the police standing order was clear: that a white man, by virtue of his pigmentation, was my boss!…

Joe Mamasela also lures nine township youth from Mamelodi in Pretoria to a house in the former homeland of KwaNdebele. "Those boys, too, were innocent," says Mamasela of the youth known as the KwaNdebele Nine.

…In the KwaNdebele Nine [killings], the people were ambushed in a house and they were shot – all nine of them. They were shot and massacred with AK-47s. And then one Lieutenant [Jacques] Hechter, he came with a big 25 litre [container] of petrol. He poured [it] in all these corpses and then he lit the fire. And some of the … some of the people there were still alive. You could hear the shrill screams. And they were all incinerated…

As Joe Mamasela detailed the most brutal killings, the people who filled the amnesty hall were silent. Unlike when Advocate Cobus Booyens questioned amnesty applicant Major Gert Lotz. Zola Ntutu and Darren Taylor highlight how Joe Mamasela played to the crowd.

…En hulle het ’n redelike voorsprong oor ons gehad…

…Mr Chairman, I must object at swear words from the floor being directed at the witness. As far as I know, there’s a section in the [Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation] Act that provides that … uh … this proceeding should be conducted in the same way as court proceedings. It is not easy to testify about things like this. Even more so if … if people…

When Mamasela’s fellow askari, Pete Mogoai, testifies about killing Qaqawuli Godolozi, there’s another uproar. Godolozi’s mother, Benedicta, becomes hysterical. The audience hurls abuse at only the white killers. "You dog!" they shout. "Nieuwoudt, you dog!"

…Mr Godolozi came screaming loudly…

Pete Mogoai

…saying that he was not prepared to say anything! He was still handcuffed. His face was still covered…

[Breaks into a hysterical and shrill scream]

…Maybe we should … we should adjourn for a few minutes…

[Uproar]

But no one hurls abuse at Joe Mamasela, even though he goes into horrific details of killings in which he’s been involved. Everyone’s quiet, almost in awe of the man who seems to have some kind of power over them. Surely, they must hate him for what he’s done, for betraying the cause and killing his own people. But it seems they don’t. Mamasela, unlike other police killers, constantly makes eye contact with the audience. He appears fearless compared to other amnesty applicants who sweat, shift uncomfortably in their chairs and even choke on their words. Mamasela, says one of the lawyers, laughs a lot.

…If I was laughing … the … this commission could have heard me laughing. So he’s just angry with himself. I told him, he’ll make himself sick!

So you … you do not agree that you…

No, I didn’t laugh. I didn’t laugh at all. And now he is the one who is laughing, Mr Chairman!

[Laugh and clap]

Joe Mamasela smiles at the lawyers who grill him. He smiles at the people in the front row on the floor below the stage, while the advocate of his former commanders cross-examines him.

Roelof du Plessis

…So these people are your people?

They are my folks. They are black people.

And you think they like you?

I don’t think so, I know they like me.

Yes, you can hear they say: "Yes, Yes, Yes!"

Yes, they can stand up. Those who like Mamasela, stand up! They can stand up!

But no one stands up to show that they’re on Mamasela’s side. Their support for him is more than evident.

I’m a militarist. I’m a well-trained intelligence officer, trained by the African National Congress. It is my duty…

[Cheers and claps]

…to cipher and to siphon data. I was trained, I was, that was my speciality in the ANC. To cipher and siphon data…

Joe Mamasela seems to be telling the audience: Look at me. I killed your people. But I am black like you. I too was a victim of apartheid. The white police also tortured me.

I will never forget that. No victim can … uh … can ever forget that torture that he’s received from the police. If you were black, you’ll understand what I mean. The torture and the constant fear of being killed…

"I am a victim. Victim. Victim." These words resonated throughout Joe Mamasela’s public testimony. And the amnesty audience acknowledged his blackness by cheering him on. Mamasela insisted that he was a double victim of the ANC and the apartheid police. This is what he told the Amnesty Committee: "The ANC murdered my brother. I had to identify his charred and semi-decomposed remains. And then I knew, I had to avenge his death." But in front of the audience with ANC supporters, Joe Mamasela did not elaborate. Darren Taylor reports.

…I’m the ANC guy myself. I’m trained by the ANC. I’m a soldier of the ANC!…

The enigma, though, is ever present.

…I found that the real enemy of the black people were black people themselves! Not necessarily white people. It then dawned in my mind that the black man’s real enemy is another black man! We are the worst oppressors of ourselves! We sell each other like hell, myself included…

"In all the time that I killed for Vlakplaas," says Mamasela, "I was just fooling the white policemen."

…They took me as one of them because of the … of something that I would call the curative power of humour that I used to entice the white commanders to … to love me. I used to even insult myself. I used to call myself a dog! I used to call other askaris dogs. Together we were calling each other dog! Dog! Dog! Dog! And then my white commanders, they fell for the ruse. They loved me! They thought that they’ve severely and completely … uh … broke me down! I was calling myself a black, a black Afrikaner. And they loved it! And in the interim, I managed to siphon a lot of data…

Mamasela constantly emphasises: "I am a human being. I was the one who gave the condemned activists their last meal."

…It was a natural instinct. They were fellow humans. I did not see just black people. I saw human beings like myself…

In the next breath, though, Mamasela calls himself "this monster, Mamasela".

…You feed your chickens and you kill them. You feed your cows and you still kill them! So feeding a human being, what [is] the difference, feeding a human being and an animal? What is the difference?…

Joe Mamasela is also a self-confessed liar.

…I want to put it to you, Mr Mamasela, that as you have exaggerated and lied on so many other occasions, you are exaggerating and lying ag… once again about what happened at Post Chalmers. That is not what happened there…

…That is absolutely ridiculous and preposterous to say I’ve lied, exaggerated. I’ve told you that I’ve lied under duress. It is your clients, the police, who told me to lie. If I did not lie, they will kill me! I was their victim…

In the face of cross-examination, Joe Mamasela is defiant and arrogant. Months before the amnesty hearing into the Pebco Three killings, he boasts: "They can bring any lawyer they want. I will deal with them."

…But you only came out just before you saw the political dispensation was going to change, Mr Mamasela. I’m putting that to you!

Your statement is laughable and ridiculous and it’s something that you suck from your own thumb. Call me as a witness, I will refuse!

Why?

I don’t testify for lawyers representing corrupt and murderous policemen! I know you, Mr Du Plessis! You always represent policemen, corrupt policemen. And you make money out of that. You are an unscrupulous lawyer!

[Starts clapping]

…Mr … Mr Mamasela…

[Continues clapping]

Even when Mamasela admits to lying in covering up apartheid atrocities, he tries to justify his lies in his own way.

…Sometimes we tell even our own children little lies to make them happy. And if that makes me a liar, a compulsive liar, so be it. We normally lie! You cannot tell me all your life you never … you never told a lie. Because you whites, you believe … eh … white people don’t lie! They only tell a white lie. White people don’t steal, they only do white-collar crime. And that’s a myth. That’s a lie…

Joe Mamasela lives off R400 000 that the police paid him when he retired. And also about R5 000 a month from the Transvaal attorney general for being a state witness. "I don’t care what people say about Mamasela," he snaps. "I’ve made peace with myself and my God about my past. In the meantime, I’ll wait until they arrest me."

…My contention has always been consistent. Let all perpetrators, including Mamasela, be prosecuted! Let us all be prosecuted!…

["Sedi lea kganya"]

["Winnie Mandela – Beloved Heroine"]

Officially, it was called the hearing into the Mandela United Football Club. Unofficially, everyone referred to it as the Winnie hearing. For nine days between November and December 1997, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela faced a battery of journalists in Johannesburg at the Truth Commission’s special hearing. "She created her own vigilante gang" out of the Football Club, said one of her fellow top ANC members. But Madikizela-Mandela, one of the most potent symbols of apartheid resistance, appeared unfazed. Throughout the hearing, she was dressed elegantly, wearing her trademark sunglasses and flashy gold rings. Antjie Samuel and Kenneth Makatees report.

…I first met Mrs Mandela, that was 1986…

Xoliswa Falati

…when she made the famous speech of the necklacing…

…With our necklaces we shall liberate this country! Amandla!…

…I was not making a statement to encourage people to necklace…

You weren’t?

No!

…I believe Mrs Mandela knew what happened to Stompie [Seipei]…

Peter Storey

…If Stompie was killed or was brought near to death in her house, I believe she would have known about it…

…I killed Stompie under the instructions of Mummy…

Jerry Richardson

…Mummy never killed anyone, but she used us to kill a lot of people. She does not even visit us in prisons. She used us!

…Stompie was not only tortured at the house, but then subsequently murdered in a savage fashion…

Azhar Cachalia

…At best for Mrs Mandela, Chairperson, at best for Mrs Mandela, she was aware and encouraged this criminal activity. At worst, she directed it and actively participated in the assaults…

…One has to say that something went wrong, horribly, badly wrong…

Desmond Tutu

What, I don’t know…

Hanif Vally

…We are talking about a group of young men who hung around the back of your house and who accompanied you at various occasions. That’s what we’re talking about.

You are not suggesting, for God’s sake, that I would be responsible for the actions of those youths when they left my premises, went back to their homes, that I would be held … uh … responsible for that?…

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela becomes known as "the mother of the nation" in the eighties. The ultimate symbol of resistance to oppression and apartheid. Millions of black people the world over adore her.

…I have immense admiration for her and there is no question at all that he [she] was a tremendous stalwart of our struggle, an icon of liberation, who was banned, harassed, under surveillance, banished, with her husband away serving a life sentence. We can never forget her outstanding contribution to the struggle and her indomitable spirit. Everything was done to seek to break that spirit. And she was an incredible inspiration to many. And her contribution to the struggle can never be gainsaid…

["Winnie Mandela – Beloved Heroine"]

Nomavenda Mathiane

["Winnie Mandela – Beloved Heroine"]

…I wanted an interview with Winnie because at the time no local newspaper had interviewed her and I thought: Here is a woman whom the international media is focusing so much on, I’ve got to go and know and find out for myself what makes her tick. Is she really the person that we are told she is? And at the time, the international media was calling her "the mother of the nation" and we didn’t know where that title had come from. She was the symbol of the ANC. She was the symbol of the oppressed. She was this strong woman who was prepared to take on the might of the Nationalist Party, head on. I mean, we used to admire her because she was so articulate, she could articulate our pain. So that is what draws the media to her. It’s like the media wants to see the fallen hero. I think they’re waiting there to see the fallen hero…

In 1986, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela helps a group of young men establish a football club. It carries the famous Mandela surname. She even dresses them in the distinct colours of the ANC: green and gold tracksuits. And they stay in the outside rooms of her Soweto house.

…When they started this Mandela Football Club, everybody admired them and I even went to watch their football matches.

Phumlile Dlamini

But after quite some time, they conducted a reign of terror, burning people’s houses and killing people. People were scared to air their views about the Football Club because they loved Winnie and they trusted Winnie as the mother who was there for the community…

Most of the Football Club members are on the run from the apartheid police. They turn to Winnie Madikizela-Mandela for shelter. She is their "mummy" or "mama".

Jerry Richardson

…I did not want anyone to touch Mummy…

["Winnie Mandela – Beloved Heroine"]

…and I was worried that they will touch Mummy. Only myself could touch Mummy. Not anyone else. You see, I loved Mummy with all my heart. I could have done anything to please her…

["Winnie Mandela – Beloved Heroine"]

Former Football Club coach and convicted murderer Jerry Richardson told the Truth Commission that Winnie Madikizela-Mandela ordered him to kill suspected police informers. Like Kuki Zwane and Lerothodi Ikaneng.

…I stabbed her. I slit her throat. We dumped her body there. I reported to Mummy that: "Mummy, I have now carried out your orders. I have killed Kuki." I told Mummy that I had killed Lerothodi. Mummy embraced me and said: "My boy, my boy!"…

Witness after witness implicated Winnie Madikizela-Mandela in killings and assaults. Like Nicodemus Sono, who told the Truth Commission that he last saw his badly beaten son, Lolo, in her minibus.

…She raised up her voice. She was speaking very loud, you know: "I cannot leave him with you! He is a spy!" So I tried to plead with her. What she said to the driver, she said she [he] must pull off. So the driver engaged the gears and he pulled off. When I looked at Lolo, he was in a terrible state, he was shaking. I pleaded with her until she said to me: "I’m taking this dog away. The movement will see what to do." The kombi turned left at the stop street and as it wanted to proceed, I asked Michael [Siyakamela] to please stop…

But it was in connection with the killing of 14-year-old activist Stompie Seipei that Winnie Madikizela-Mandela would forever be linked. In 1991, she was found guilty of kidnapping Stompie from the Methodist manse in Soweto and sentenced to six years in jail. Following an appeal, she paid a fine and never served a day. Darren Taylor and Angie Kapelianis report.

…I saw her killing Stompie…

Katiza Cebekhulu

…I’m referring to Winnie. Eh … she raised her hand twice and put it down as well, in a form of stabbing, and I left immediately into my bedroom. I was scared as to what I was seeing, eh … whether it was a nightmare or what…

But Jerry Richardson says Madikizela-Mandela gave him and Slash Mtshali the job of killing Stompie Seipei – the teenager who she insisted was a police informer.

…I slaughtered him like a goat. We made him lie on his back and I put garden shears through his neck. And the garden shears penetrated to the back of his neck and I made some cutting motion. Slash also had his own pair of garden shears and he cut Stompie’s neck. He really wanted to make sure that we cut his throat…

In early 1989, ANC leaders try to get Winnie Madikizela-Mandela to release Stompie Seipei and the other young men from her Soweto home. She even refuses to listen to the pleas of Nelson Mandela and insists that the youths are there on their own free will. But when Stompie’s decomposed body is found on a hill overlooking Soweto, the ANC intervenes. Top members like Azhar Cachalia call a news conference and tell the masses: "Distance yourselves from Winnie Mandela!"

…It was one of the most difficult decisions I have ever made. But I think it was also one of the proudest moments that I can remember. Anyone who has been convicted of having committed a criminal offence, which amounts to a gross violation of a person’s human rights, should not be regarded as fit to hold public office…

[Applauds]

…Uh … order!…

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela shakes her head, laughs and whispers to her lawyer in the face of witnesses lined up against her. Witnesses like one-time friend Xoliswa Falati.

…To implicate me into the dirty things that has… My hands are not dripping with the blood of the African children! I’ve never compromised my comrades! I’ve never even compromised her! I went to prison for her! As my leader, she was so much ungrateful. She dehumanises a person. She reduce a person to nothing. She regard herself as a demigod! She regard herself as a super-being! She wants everybody must cover her up by all means…

Madikizela-Mandela rolls her index finger at the side of her head, implying that Falati is insane.

…I don’t know Mrs Mandela, really. We’ve met face to face briefly. My feelings about you have … have taken me in many directions, as you can imagine…

Madikizela-Mandela relies on information from Falati and falsely accuses this man, Methodist Reverend Paul Verryn, of sodomising young men at his manse. She then orders her Football Club to bring them to her house.

…I have been profoundly, profoundly affected by some of the things that you have said about me, that have hurt me and cut me to the quick. I have had to struggle to come to some place of learning to forgive, even if you do not want forgiveness or even think that I deserve to offer that to you. I struggle to … to find a way in which we can be reconciled – for the sake of this nation and for the people that I believe God loves so deeply. And so I … I sit before you and want to say that to you…

…The truth has been suppressed because people have vanished and feared for their lives. And I really believe that to dispel this suffocating fog of silence and lies is very important for the future of this country…

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela stares straight ahead when Methodist Bishop Peter Storey takes the stand. He’s convinced that she’s guilty of gross human rights violations.

…The primary cancer may be, and was, and will always be … uh … the … uh … apartheid oppression, but secondary infections have touched many of apartheid’s opponents and eroded their knowledge of good and evil. And one of the tragedies of life, sir, is it’s possible to become like that which we hate most…

…We started torturing the youths in the manner that the boers used to torture freedom fighters. The first thing that I did to Stompie was to hold him on both sides, throw him up in the air and let him fall freely on to the ground. And Mummy was sitting and watching us. He was tortured so severely that at some stage I could see that he would ultimately die…

…That’s why I think the kidnapping and the murder of Stompie Seipei are important beyond the normal horror we should feel. Because at one level they may have been common law crimes, but they’re also about the ruthless abuse of power, even given the latitude of a time of struggle. And they resemble far too closely the abuses of apartheid itself…

Some witnesses believe that the Mandela United Football Club was closely linked to the apartheid police. Former coach Jerry Richardson even confesses to being a police informer or impimpi.

…The Football Club was infiltrated by the police and some of its members actually worked for the police. Some members of the community held a view that Mrs Mandela herself was working with the police…

Throughout the special hearing, the Truth Commission hears that Winnie Madikizela-Mandela is intimidating witnesses testifying against her.

…We have kept quiet. We’ve had private reports on commission level that Mrs Madikizela-Mandela has been contacting witnesses who’ve been subpoenaed. We have tried to provide them with witness protection. We need an unequivocal statement from her that she will not contact any witnesses who have been subpoenaed by this commission. Thank you, Mr Chairperson…

Through her lawyer, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela says: "If the commission has the evidence, then charge me." When her supporters confront the mother of Stompie Seipei, Truth Commission Chairperson Desmond Tutu intervenes.

Some people wearing the uniform of the ANC Women’s League harassed Mrs [Mananki Joyce] Seipei when she went to "the ladies". May I just say that it is reprehensible conduct, which I condemn in the strongest possible terms. It is disgraceful! That mother has lost a child who was killed gruesomely! And it is disgraceful for people who claim to be mothers to subject her to the kind of treatment that I learn Mrs Seipei was subjected to. Eh … I hope I won’t need to intervene again…

Time and again, witnesses express their fear of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.

Ismael Semenya

…Has she ever threatened you, ma’am?

Yes, I used to see her scaring other people or threatening other people…

Nomsa Tshabalala

…And it’s the first time that I face Mrs Mandela. I’m even scared of her even now…

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s response to every single allegation against her is basically just two words.

…Jerry Richardson says you ordered the killing of Stompie.

That is ludicrous. That is ridiculous…

["Winnie Mandela – Beloved Heroine"]

In the same vein, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela denied everything, saying the Truth Commission witnesses were "hallucinating" and were either "senile" or "lunatics". She also insisted that the Football Club members were not her personal bodyguards and that she never had any control over them while they were staying at her house. "If they committed crimes on my premises, I never knew about it," she said. Zola Ntutu and Thapelo Mokushane report.

…The fact that they were that careless to do that cannot possibly be attributed to me!

But you were an MK operative and you allowed such irresponsible activity to take place in your house!

How did I allow that … uh … Mr Chairman? You are confused!

I am giving you…

[Laughs, claps, cheers and whistles]

Eh … order please!…

Truth Commission legal adviser Hanif Vally is blunt with Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. "Stop playing around with this commission!" says Vally.

I am not playing around!

Are you aware he’s got amnesty for that…

…and I will not tolerate you speaking to me like that! I will not!

[Claps, cheers and whistles]

I am trying to give you answers…

I … I’m sorry. Excuse me…

…to the best of my ability!

…Excuse me, Mrs … um … Madikizela-Mandela…

Madikizela-Mandela calls the Truth Commission "a mud-slinging forum" and is completely defiant of the process, even when the facts speak for themselves.

…I did not know Paul Verryn and would never ever have simply just gone to … go out of my way to smear Reverend Paul Verryn.

Your interview on the 1^st of February 1989 with NBC news: "Paul Verryn has a very, very serious psychological problem. I do not understand why a man of his calibre and a Christian would continue sodomising black children."

I made no accusation against Reverend Paul Verryn…

The truth commissioners are stunned when Madikizela-Mandela refuses to take any responsibility for the murders, assaults and tortures that her Football Club committed.

…These were youngsters who congregated around you! Do you not accept that you have to bear some kind of responsibility for their actions?…

Yasmin Sooka

…They, in fact, regarded you as their leader. 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.

Uh … yes, it is true that most of the witnesses who testified here were lying…

Madikizela-Mandela is only prepared to go this far and say: "I have passion for the cause of the weak and this may have opened me to less vigilance and some reckless disregard." But her half-apology rings hollow when compared to that of Paul Verryn. He heard the Football Club members accusing Stompie of being a police informer, ordered them to "stop their nonsense" and left the matter there. A few days later, Stompie was dead.

…I see that Mrs Seipei is in the … in the audience here today and the thing that has … um… The thing that has been most difficult for me is that having … um … heard the allegations, I did … I did not remove him from the mission house and get him to a place where he could be safe. If I had acted in another way, he could … he might still be … he … he … he could be alive today…

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has always been close to Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. He used to live in the same street as her in Soweto during the struggle years. Their children went to the same school. And she is the godmother of one of his grandchildren. In a final and desperate attempt, Tutu throws her a lifeline.

…There are people out there who want to embrace you. I … I still embrace you because I love you and I love you very deeply. There are many out there who would have wanted to do so, if you were able to bring yourself to say: "Something went wrong." And to say: "I’m sorry. I’m sorry for my part in what went wrong." I beg you! I beg you! I beg you! Please! You are a great person and you don’t know how your greatness would be enhanced if you had to say: "Sorry. Things went wrong. Forgive me." I beg you!

I am saying it is true. Things went horribly wrong. For that, I am deeply sorry.

[Applauds]

Thank you very much. We adjourn…

["Winnie Mandela – Beloved Heroine"]

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