MANDELA´S MYTHOLOGI DEMYSTIFISERT! Behind the Myth of The Mandelas - the Legend

South African courts step in over Mandela family burial row

[ http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/he-can-t-be-buried-alone-1.1541753#.UdUhUz7GVag ]

'He can't be buried alone' July 4 2013 by Henriëtte Geldenhuys

• Thank you SA for Mandela prayers
• Support for Mandela continues
• Mandela deserves to live - prayer group
• Winnie: My vigil for the man I still love

Johannesburg

Doctors have advised Nelson Mandela’s family that his life support should be switched off – and they are considering this to avoid prolonging his suffering.

But the statesman will not die a dignified death unless he is buried near the remains of two of his sons and a granddaughter in Qunu.

This emerged in the Mthatha High Court on Wednesday, where Judge Lusindiso Pakade ordered that the remains be exhumed from Mveza and returned to Qunu...

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[ CIVIL WAR IN MADIBALAND ]

Issue #66, 1st April 2005

The ascent of Nelson Mandela from political prisoner to leader of the ANC, from President of South Africa to international icon of racial reconciliation has been relentless over the last fifteen years.

Madiba is revered by people all over the world; for most foreigners, his is the only South African story.

He has also become a valuable brand and trademark.

Since his retirement from active politics in 1999, Mandela has presided over a veritable kingdom of foundations, some publicly promoted such as the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund and the Mandela-Rhodes Foundation, some confidential such as the NRM Trust.

At the Nelson Mandela Foundation, he is surrounded by trusty retainers such as John Samuel, the chief executive of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, Professor Jakes Gerwel, former Director-General and Secretary of the Cabinet, Ahmed Kathrada, ANC colleague and Rivonia trialist, and Zelda la Grange, his personal assistant and spokesperson.

But one of the inner circle, Ismail Ayob, Mandela’s personal lawyer for over twenty years, has been quietly removed.

Twelve months ago, Mandela dismissed Ayob without public announcement.

Mandela's African name, Rolihlahla, translates as "troublemaker". And the trouble that is coming threatens to shake Mandelaland to the core.

Anthony Sampson described Mandela as "... like a fantasy monarch, the man with rhythm who can swing and dance with his subjects."

In order to understand the civil war that is breaking out in Mandelaland, it is useful to imagine a medieval monarchy when the King is nearing the end.

The family, and factions within the family, are agitating for position in the aftermath; the court is rampant with whispers and plots.

Mandela Foundation chief executive, John Samuel, chief minister in our imagined medieval court, was present at the meeting where it was finally decided to take legal action against Ayob.

Mandela was outraged when he heard of the latest development in the embarrassing "Mandela art" moneymaking scheme that Ayob persists in operating without his consent.

Ismail Mahomed Ayob is 63 years old. He came to public recognition as a struggle attorney. In the early 1980s, he began to represent Winnie Madikizela Mandela before being appointed to the distinguished position of Nelson Mandela's personal lawyer.

He was a regular visitor to Mandela at Pollsmoor and Victor Verster prisons and carried messages to the underground ANC. During the 1990s, Ayob became one of the most powerful gatekeepers to Mandela.

He ceased to act for Winnie following the separation in 1992.

He was also a trustee of all the Mandela secret trusts.

In noses48&49, we told the strange story of how Nelson Mandela had suddenly in 2001, at the age of 83, emerged as an artist.

In our report, we suggested that “Madiba art” was a questionable money-making scheme cooked up by Ismail Ayob and former policeman and ad agency director, Ross Calder.

The first company to produce Madiba art, the Concept Group, paid an Ayob front company, Magnifique Investment and Holding, R13m in advance to produce 5046 copies of a set of five drawings of hands bearing Mandela's signature.

The original drawings were executed by Hugh McCallum, Concept's art director, and were to be marketed as "A touch of Mandela magic".

The projected sale of the sets of drawings, at a cost of $5,000 a set, promised to raise more than R200m. The scheme collapsed at the first hurdle because, having given Ayob R13m, Concept had insufficient capital left to launch the project.

The Concept Group and its parent company, Union Alliance Media, were declared bankrupt. The first the Foundation heard of the deal and Ayob's R13m windfall was when Concept's liquidators sued Magnifique to recover their money.

Meanwhile, Ayob and Calder launched a second Madiba art project.

They employed a young South African artist, Varenka Paschke, a grand-daughter of former President PW Botha, to produce gentle lithographs of Robben Island.

It was explained to potential purchasers of the pictures that Paschke had “tutored” Mandela in painting.

In 2003, Ross Calder assured CNN television that the art had raised $700,000 for the Mandela Children’s Fund.

Six months later, he changed his tune, claiming that 50 percent of the sales money was paid directly to the Nelson Mandela Trust.

This Trust had been registered in 2001 by Ismail Ayob.

The income from the Trust was supposed to provide payments to Nelson Mandela, Graca Machel, Winnie Madikizela Mandela and the Mandela children.

The first trustees of the Mandela Trust were Ayob and his wife, Zamila. Mrs Ayob later resigned to be replaced by two eminent lawyers, George Bizos and William Henry Trengrove.

Most art lovers, except the rich and foolish, recognised that Madiba art was nothing more than a money-making fraud. Embarrassed, the Mandela Foundation and other Mandela organisations closed ranks and referred journalistic inquiries to Ismail Ayob.

The exception was John Samuel, chief executive of the Mandela Foundation who signalled his disquiet in an interview with noseweek in 2003: "It was a private matter between Mr Ayob and Union Alliance Media - it's got nothing to do with the Foundation."

But the wider silence, and the refusal to state clearly that Madiba art was a confidence trick on those who wanted to purchase a "piece of Mandela", permitted Ayob and Calder to continue their operation.

We have been unable to substantiate the rumour that Mandela sacked Ayob in March 2004 after the American television personality, Oprah Winfrey, purchased one of the “Madiba paintings” for a substantial fee, and then approached Mandela to authenticate the work.

There is now a third Madiba art extravaganza which was launched in January 2005 in Davos, Switzerland: “The Nelson Mandela Unity Series”.

For this project, Ayob and Calder have resurrected the original drawings of hands and invited artists from around the world to use the drawings as a base for creative expression.

Among the artists involved are Beezy Bailey, Willie Bester and Varenka Paschke (see illustration).

The third round of the Madiba art circus appears to have pushed the Foundation and the family beyond the limits of endurance; quite apart from being tainted and possibly legally compromised by this disreputable venture, most of the proceeds go to Ayob, Calder and their marketing agents.

We understand that representatives of Mandela contacted the organisers of the Davos launch “to express Nelson Mandela’s displeasure.” For the first time, John Samuel has declared clearly that Madiba art “does not have the support or endorsement of Nelson Mandela”.

He informed noseweek that the catalogue produced by Ayob and "his henchman", Calder, claiming a link to Nelson Mandela was "grossly misleading" and "patently a lie".

Samuel also added that Nelson Mandela had taken a decision to "serve papers" on Ayob requesting full accounts covering the entire period that Ayob has managed Mandela's financial affairs.

It is believed that the Foundation knows of at least R30-40m that is not accounted for and suspects that much more has gone missing. It is expected that Mandela will make a formal complaint regarding Ayob’s activities to the Law Society of South Africa.

Ismail Ayob has served as a councillor of the Law Society of South Africa, a councillor of the Transvaal Law Society and the Chairperson of the Gauteng Law Council. Mandela, who was originally a lawyer, is said to have told a number of friends that "I want Ayob imprisoned."

People speaking on behalf of Winnie Madikizela Mandela and Graca Machel have repeated the sentiment.

But it is not going to be simple: Ayob had what was recently described as "unfettered access to Nelson Mandela over many years". When noseweek spoke to Ayob he had no idea of the allegations.

He refused to explain why he had ceased to act as a lawyer for Mandela in March 2004, noting that “it was a personal matter.” With regard to the Mandela Foundation, he declared that he had stopped acting as the Foundation’s attorney “two to three years ago”.

He explained that PriceWaterhouseCoopers performed an audit upon his departure and that it had demonstrated a "clear balance sheet" and a "settled account".

Ayob admitted that he had been a "trustee of all the [Mandela] Trusts" but that he now remained on only two: the NRM Trust and the Nelson Mandela Trust. Ayob also suggested that there are other trusts for the individual Mandela children.

Of these, he says: "The children are the best to take control of their destiny." But Ayob serves as a personal lawyer for Dr Makaziwe Mandela and Zenani Mandela. He also acted for Mandela's son, Makgatho, until his death earlier this year.

John Samuel accepts that the PWC audit cleared Ayob of any wrong-doing with regard to the Nelson Mandela Charitable Trust, which funds the Foundation. But he notes that Amax, the management firm established and owned by Ismail Ayob "was paid handsomely" for managing the Foundation's accounts in addition to the attorney's fees charged by Ayob's firm.

A close friend of Mandela added that there was a lack of accounts related to projects on the peripherary of the Foundation, and that it had taken many months to disentangle Ayob's complex web of deals, a process that was still on-going.

What remains to be seen is how the board of the Mandela Foundation will react.

Is it going to back Mandela in demanding that Ayob account for the missing funds, or is it going to retreat into the false comfort of facilitating a cover-up?

There are 26 members of the board including Nelson Mandela himself.

They represent every section of modern South African society. Former and current politicians on the board include Professor Kader Asmal, Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, Dr Frene Ginwala, Ahmed Kathrada, Chris Liebenberg, Bridgitte Mabandla, Mac Maharaj, Phumzile Mlambo Ngcuka and Lindi Sisulu. Former and current civil servants/diplomats include Professor Jakes Gerwel, Barbara Masekela, Mendi Msimang, Joel Netshitenzhe and Dr Franklin Sonn.

Business interests are represented by Dr Nthato Motlana, Cyril Ramaphosa and Tokyo Sexwale. The family is represented by Graca Machel and Dr Makaziwe Mandela.

The final six members are Professor Fink Haysom, Irene Menell, Professor Njabulo Ndebele, Judge Dumisa Ntsebeza, Dr Mamphela Ramphele and Advocate Themba Sangoni.

The row between Mandela and Ayob is only one act in a much bigger drama.

The Mandela family is completely divided over the roles played by the Foundation and Ayob.

Graca Machel is said to dislike intensely the dominant role played by the Foundation in Mandela’s life.

In particular, she is understood to detest Mandela’s personal assistant, Zelda la Grange, a Foundation executive.

But Graca is said to support Madiba’s wish that “something must be done” about Ayob.

Winnie Mandela has loathed Ismail Ayob since the early 1990s when he chose Mandela's side in the separation and divorce.

Winnie is also concerned by the dominance of the Foundation.

At the funeral of Mandela’s son, Makgatho, Graca and Winnie sat on either side of Madiba.

his was interpreted by observers as symbolic of the former and current wife coming together to support the old man at a time of tragedy.

It could also be read as Winnie and Graca making common cause in a much more substantial battle.


Preparing for the end of the long walk

The row about money extends to the delicate matter over who will arrange Madiba's funeral.

A Nelson Mandela Family Funeral Committee has been established by Maki Mandela, the only surviving child from Mandela’s first marriage (she acted as spokesperson for the family following the public announcement of Makgatho’s illness) and Winnie’s daughter, Zenani Mandela.

The committee is chaired by Tokyo Sexwale. Interestingly, Ismail Ayob still acts for the two children on this committee.

The second daughter from Mandela’s marriage to Winnie, Zindzi, refuses to co-operate with Ayob and remains closely linked to her mother.

The two wives are furious at the impertinence of the children colluding with Sexwale on this subject.

A personal friend of Nelson Mandela told noseweek: "Some members of the family are like vultures."

Eventually, the state will meet the bill for Nelson Mandela's funeral but it is clear that if the subject can sow division within the family, it is but a foretaste of the chaos to come when the voices of the Foundation, the African National Congress and the government are all permitted to enter the fray.

Although it might appear insensitive to discuss the subject, the handling of Mandela’s passing is critical to how the world views South Africa. The vast majority of current and former international leaders will attend the funeral.

The least that Nelson Mandela should expect is that his departure will be treated with dignity and a worthy celebration of a life well lived.

A desperate struggle by politicians, functionaries and family to grab “the hem of his garment” would defile the memory of South Africa’s greatest son.

Copyright © 2013 www.noseweek.co.za

[ http://www.noseweek.co.za/article.php?current_article=2311 ]

Books: The Mandela behind the myth

Issue #130, 1st August 2010

In a way, in 1990, Nelson Mandela walked out of one prison straight into another, quickly and surely becoming captive to the many myths that have come to surround him.

But not for much longer, if British journalist David James Smith can help it – his Young Mandela sets out to liberate Mandela from this new form of captivity.

He boldly declares: “My plan was to rescue the sainted Madiba from the dry pages of history, to strip away the myth and create a fresh portrait of a rounded human being.”

To make sure we get the point, Smith reminds us, a little later on: “From the beginning, I was encouraged by those around Mandela to write about him as a human being.

Don’t write about the icon, came the plea; he knows he is not a saint – he has flaws and weaknesses like everyone else.”

The first myth to be dismantled is the one concerning Mandela’s father, Henry Mandela, a chief in the Eastern Cape village of Mvezo.

The story as told by Mandela himself, in his autobiography, is that Mandela senior was forcibly removed from his position after he rebelled against the authority of a white magistrate, by defying a summons to appear before him.

Smith notes: “The impression is of a prestigious lineage summarily and unjustly terminated; a chief – Mandela’s own father – humiliated; and a family condemned to hardship.”

In fact, according to records from the magistrate’s archives, Mandela’s father was stripped of his position after complaints that he irregularly allocated land to villagers, in exchange for either gifts or money.

Smith readily acknowledges that there was not necessarily any wrongful intention in Mandela’s own account of events:

“In passing on the oral history of his father’s downfall, he was observing an important custom, but also, perhaps inadvertently, exposing its fundamental weakness as a reliable record.”

He adds, perceptively: “Truth and myth can easily become blurred in the memory, either accidentally or purposefully.”

A pity, then, that Smith proceeds to disregard his own wisdom. For instance, he revisits rumours of an affair between Mandela and fellow anti-apartheid activist Ruth Mompati, which tells that a child was born of their relationship.

The story was based on hearsay (Smith cites “people close to Mandela”), and offers no more than circumstantial evidence to support the rumour (“apparently he looked like his father”).

Nevertheless, Smith confidently concludes that a child was indeed born from the relationship.

Another example concerns a reference to anti-apartheid activist Amina Cachalia. Nowhere does Smith suggest there was ever anything other than friendship between her and Mandela.

Yet, almost gratuitously, he includes Cachalia in a list of women who allegedly hoped Mandela would join them on his release from prison.

The danger, then, is that while seeking to destroy some of the myths surrounding Mandela, Smith actually constructs new ones.

There is no doubt that Mandela was involved in relationships with various women (his daughter Zindzi confirmed as much in an interview with Smith).

So there is no reason to distort or exaggerate this aspect of Mandela’s life.

Yet, instead of shedding light on such matters, Young Mandela comes across as tacky – even mischievous.

Note, for instance, the unsubstantiated comment that “...there are suspicions there could be other half-siblings too”.

Or the titillating “There were other women, too, some with names that do not appear elsewhere in the record, stories that hinted at, rather than proved, affairs.”

Nudge-nudge; hint-hint.

Smith spends quite a bit of time on various sexual shenanigans, even when Mandela is not directly involved.

For instance, he recollects often-told tales about the infidelities of anti-apartheid leaders Joe Slovo and Ruth First.

According to Smith, First was romantically involved with Ismail Meer before she got married. Years later, they danced together at a party. Smith breathlessly recounts: “Ruth was quivering when she came to Amina [Cachalia]. What should she do about her reawakened feelings for Ismail?”

The sexual escapades of Arthur Goldreich are also dredged up. Smith quotes a disapproving Denis Goldberg:

“Arthur was a womaniser and Hazel [Mrs Goldreich] knew and tolerated it.

He used to boast about his revolutionary activities, to get into young women’s pants (panties?).”

Smith lamely tries to justify this kind of prurience:

“More than anything, perhaps, it is fascinating to reflect on why there was so much extramural sexual activity and what that tells us about the chief characters and the world and the age they were living through.”

Fortunately there is much more to Young Mandela than the salacious. S

mith unearths fascinating and little-known details about Mandela’s trip through Africa in search of political and military support for the ANC’s newly declared war on apartheid, after the Sharpeville killings of 1960.

Mandela’s journey took him to Botswana, Tanganyika (now Tanzania), Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Ethiopia (via Sudan), Egypt (via Libya), Morocco (or Algeria with the FNL) and Senegal.

So thorough was Smith’s research that he can include Mandela’s own conscientious account of the funds he raised during his journey.

This information is based on a report that Mandela wrote for his comrades on his return. It also provides a sobering account of the widespread support for the ANC’s rival, the Pan Africanist Congress, in many (if not most) parts of the continent.

This is a major strength of Smith’s book: when documentary evidence is available, it is engaging and authoritative.

Another example is the way he deals with the court papers filed by Evelyn (neé Mase), Mandela’s first wife, when she filed for divorce in 1956.

In these papers, she alleges that Mandela assaulted her several times over a period of 10 months.

Smith deals with her claims dispassionately and with circumspection. He notes that they were never tested in court, and that Mandela categorically denied the allegations in a petition filed by his lawyers (as well as in subsequent interviews).

Yet, in line with Smith’s unrelenting quest to demythologise Mandela, he cannot resist returning to these claims a little later.

“If it is true that he attacked his wife, the explanation may lie in the unrelieved pressure and instability of his life in those years,” he speculates.

“Perhaps sometimes he simply blew a gasket and Evelyn suffered for it. Whilst that does not excuse his behaviour, it may provide some kind of context.”

So, at first, Smith diligently questions the veracity of Evelyn’s claims. Yet, a few pages later, he resorts to conjecture.

A couple of cases like this sometimes make Young Mandela a frustrating read: it gives unnecessary prominence to the scandalous, making claims where sufficient evidence can’t be produced to corroborate them.

This is even the case in matters not related directly to Mandela. For instance, there is a snide reference to the political credentials and character of fellow Robben Island prisoner Govan Mbeki, based on unidentified sources.

Where Smith does fair best is in repositioning Evelyn and her three children at the centre of Mandela’s life, alongside Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and their two children.

He reminds us that his first family were the original occupants of the famous Mandela house in Orlando West (now a museum).

“Among the first family there is a feeling that they have been dispossessed, written out of Mandela’s life,” observes Smith. His account, written with much empathy, goes some way towards restoring them to their rightful place in Mandela’s life story.

Smith also movingly touches on the void left in the lives of both families by Mandela’s single-minded devotion to the anti-apartheid cause.

His granddaughter, Ndileka, for instance, appears to be most open about the loss. But, notes Smith, she could just as well have been speaking for Zindzi.

Of course Mandela can never make up for that loss. It is too late: he turned 92 in July, and is suffering from the afflictions that typically arrive with advanced age.

According to Smith, for Mandela this includes short-term memory loss. As he poignantly comments:

“Mandela had given his best years to the struggle for liberation, and this was all that was left now, for his family: the same harmless yarns replayed many times over...”

Smith takes a well-aimed swipe at those who endlessly recount “the triumphant narrative” of Mandela’s life, yet never pause to consider the pain and suffering that his heroism imposed on those around him.

In part, that is what this welcome account seeks to rectify, even if the end result is not altogether satisfactory. Too many sources stay unnamed, and some come across as rather self-serving, even spiteful.

However, we do now know a bit more about the man behind the myths. For that, we are indebted to Smith.

Copyright © 2013 www.noseweek.co.za

Who is Winnie Madikizela-MandelaWinnie Madikizela–Mandela is a South African politician who has held several government positions and headed the African National Congress Women's League.

She is currently a member of the ANC's National Executive Committee.

Born: September 26, 1936 (age 76), Bizana, Eastern Cape

Spouse: Nelson Mandela (m. 1958–1996)

Education: University of the Witwatersrand Party: African National Congress

Children: Zindziswa Mandela, Zenani Mandela

Awards: United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights

Winnie's ghosts will always haunt SA

Issue #163, 1st May 2013

This is a story mostly about our murky past, but it opens in our equally murky present.

Last July, in open defiance of her party’s leadership, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela endorsed Julius Malema’s campaign for “economic freedom in our time,” which was tantamount to supporting the fat boy’s plot to oust State President Jacob Zuma at the ANC conference in Mangaung.

This did not sit well with ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe, who told reporters, “What she is doing is dangerous”. Gwede did not add, Winnie will be punished, but, as young Julius has since learned, the price for challenging the ruling Zuma faction can be stiff.

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela

A few weeks later, officers of the National Prosecuting Authority paid a possibly unrelated visit to the Soweto home of Dorothy Sono, biological mother of a youth who disappeared 25 years ago.

They told her they had reason to believe they’d located her son Lolo’s body and wanted a blood sample for DNA testing purposes.

NPA investigators proceeded to exhume two sets of bones from a pauper’s grave at Avalon cemetery, announcing that if laboratory tests confirmed they were the remains of Lolo Sono and his best friend Siboniso Shabalala, they might file murder charges against Winnie Mandela.

Kaboom!

The story blew up internationally, for such is the power of the Mandela brand.

Amid the excitement, reporters tended to overlook the affair’s most puzzling aspect: the missing boys’ parents anguished for decades about their sons’ whereabouts, but there was no mystery at all as far as police were concerned.

Within days of the boys’ disappearance (on 13 November, 1988), police knew they were dead. They also had a fair idea who’d murdered them, and why.

They even knew where the bodies were buried.

But they shut up about it.

For 25 years!

Those police were agents of the apartheid state. Winnie Mandela was one of their deadliest enemies – a revolutionary bent on tearing down white rule by any means necessary: the mortar, the bazooka, the AK-47, even the necklace in extremis.

Why would white racist cops protect a murderous black power fanatic? We’ve a shrewd suspicion why they’re digging up those bones now, but why the failure to do so for the previous 25 years? As we said, it’s murky.

Let’s investigate.

Born and raised in Meadowlands, Soweto, Lolo Sono is a child of the struggle. As a nine-year-old, he witnessed the Soweto uprising of l976. As a teen, he served as a foot soldier in the UDF rebellion of 1984-1986, throwing stones and boycotting school.

His political mentor was his own father, Nicodemus, a taxi driver by day but arms smuggler by night, operating under the direct command of the world-famous Winnie Mandela.

Nicodemus Sono owns a taxi with secret panels.

From time to time, he is sent to places he can’t identify, to pick up cargo he can’t talk about, for delivery to underground cadres of MK – Umkhonto we Sizwe, the ANC’s military wing.

Lolo’s stepmother, Caroline, is a church minister who agonises about Lolo and his dad’s dangerous escapades. Perhaps that’s why Lolo and his best friend, Siboniso Shabalala, keep their plans to themselves: both boys want to join MK and go abroad for military training.

Meanwhile, they’re making themselves useful running errands for older men who are already involved in the struggle.

On 9 November, 1988, they drop in to visit Lolo’s cousin Tebogo Maluleke, an MK operative who has recently returned to Soweto on a secret military mission.

They’ve picked a bad moment; a police helicopter is circling above the house where Maluleke and a comrade are hiding, and he orders the boys to leave immediately.

As they walk away, a police SWAT team attacks, killing both MK guerrillas. A white policeman also dies in the gunfight.

Clearly, someone betrayed the two MK men. The house where they died belongs to Jerry Richardson, one of Mrs Mandela’s closest associates and coach of her “Mandela United Football Club,” a band of teenage runaways and struggle psychopaths who live in Mrs Mandela’s backyard and act as her enforcers.

A decade hence, it will turn out that Richardson was the traitor, but right now, he’s the apple of Mrs Mandela’s eye.

Which is why suspicion falls on the two young couriers.

According to Fred Bridgland, a British journalist who has devoted decades to a study of Winnie’s life and times, Lolo and Siboniso know they’re under investigation by Winnie’s cadres but aren’t really perturbed because they have nothing to hide.

On 12 November, Lolo voluntarily reports to Winnie’s Diepkloof home. That day, several Mandela United footballers turn up at Siboniso’s house. He packs his clothes and goes off with them, telling his folks he’s leaving the country to join MK.

Neither he nor Lolo come home that night.

The next evening – 13 November –Mrs Mandela’s blue mini-bus Kombi draws up outside the home of Nicodemus Sono. Mrs Mandela is in one of the front seats. Among the passengers are Lolo Sono, his face swollen, and several Football Club members, one of whom is gripping Lolo by his collar and sticking a gun in his ribs.

Mrs Mandela informs Nicodemus that they’ve come to fetch certain documents and photographs belonging to his son.

“She told me Lolo was a spy and that two comrades had been killed because of him,” Nicodemus told Bridgland. “I saw Lolo had been badly beaten. He was shaking and his eyes were swollen.

I pleaded with her that she’d got it wrong and that Lolo was an [ANC] activist.”

When Lolo tries to speak, Mrs Mandela tells him to shut up.

Because his son is trembling, Nicodemus asks Mrs Mandela to permit his wife to fetch a sweater for Lolo. As he hands the sweater to his son, Nicodemus manages to have a quick word with him.

“He said he had gone to Winnie’s [house] of his own free will because he wanted to be smuggled out of the country to train for the struggle. Instead, he had been beaten up.

“I pleaded with Winnie to return my son,” said Nicodemus. “She totally refused. She said, ‘I am taking this dog away, the movement will see what to do with him.’”

At that, the blue Kombi drives off, leaving Nicodemus shaken. He can’t believe what he’s just seen. He and Winnie are comrades. She had to know that on more than one occasion he’d risked his life for the ANC.

But he says, “I was seeing another side of Winnie altogether”.

At the time, those living in ANC strongholds are expected to report crimes to ANC-run People’s Courts, not police. Talking to the police is a form of treachery.

But Nicodemus Sono is frantic, and feels he has to do something to save his son. Next morning he walks into a police station and lays a complaint against Winnie Mandela. The date is November 14, 1988, and the timing is extremely awkward.

As of November 1988, Nelson Mandela has been in jail for 26 years, serving a life sentence for plotting the violent overthrow of SA’s white government. In the l970s, he was largely forgotten, but then the ANC decided to use him to personify the anti-apartheid struggle, and now he’s the most famous prisoner in the world, a martyr whose most recent birthday was celebrated in absentia by hundreds of thousands of fans at London’s Wembley Stadium. Nelson is also at the centre of a vast international plot to remake southern Africa in a form more pleasing to the rest of humanity.

This is at least partly the result of the Soviet Union’s impending collapse. The Soviets are too broke to continue the great game. Their Cuban proxies have just left Angola, and they’ve warned the ANC to give up its fantasies of military victory.

In return, Western powers are pressuring Pretoria to set Namibia free and talk to the ANC. As a result, secret peace talks are taking place everywhere.

Boer generals are talking to Cubans. Willie Esterhuyse’s group is talking to Thabo Mbeki, while National Intelligence supremo Neil Barnard virtually camps out in Nelson Mandela’s prison cell, discussing the shape of the next South Africa.

Mandela hasn’t appeared in public for 26 years, but his lovely wife more than makes up for his absence.

According to research by writer Rian Malan, Winnie made 70 appearances on American network television and merited 22 stories in the New York Times in l986 alone –more than most heads of state.

Scores of flattering magazine profiles were written about her.

he was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize and showered with honorary degrees.

“She was one of the most famous women in the world,” writes Malan, “the brave and selfless ‘Mother of the Nation’.”

Soweto security police knew better.

The activities of the Mandela United Football Club, or MUFC, had made Mrs Mandela profoundly unpopular in her own neighbourhood, to the extent that her Orlando mansion was eventually burned down by irate neighbours.

Mrs Mandela moved her menagerie ("zoo") to a new house in Diepkloof, where the troubles continued. Her MUFC bodyguards were running wild, hiding guns under beds and atop cupboards in the Mandela house, borrowing Winnie’s cars for murder sprees. Soweto cops arrested them on numerous occasions.

In one case, MUFC members were found guilty of murdering two unarmed men after a fight in a shebeen. In another, they were accused of etching slogans (“Viva ANC”) into the flesh of alleged sellouts with penknives and then pouring battery acid into the wounds during a torture session in Mrs Mandela’s kitchen.

(They were acquitted when the frightened victims failed to identify their assailants.)

Luckily for Winnie, there was no political fallout from these trials, because the international media ignored them entirely.

Then again, these trials took place at a time when the ANC and the National Party were still bent on mutual destruction. But by the time Nicodemus Sono walked into Protea police station, the game had changed completely. Nelson Mandela’s name was on everyone’s lips.

He was the man of the moment, the linchpin in all peace plans. Allowing his wife to be branded a psycho was unthinkable.

(Psycho is unfair. Winnie was more like the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland, given to crying, "Off with his head!" whenever anyone irritated her.)

According to Bridgland, Nicodemus first told his story to the security branch at Protea police station. Noting that abduction was a common law crime, they sent Sono to Meadowlands police station, where he made a sworn statement to a Captain Kleynhans.

What followed, says Bridgland, “is possibly the most sustained outbreak of chicanery in the history of policing”. (See ‘Any move against Mrs Mandela would have upset the political apple cart’ below.)

Bridgland notes that Soweto’s security police almost certainly learned of Lolo and Siboniso’s abduction within hours of its occurrence. At least one of those responsible, Jerry Richardson, was an informer. Police were also (according to TRC testimony) tapping Mrs Mandela’s telephone around the clock.

“If they’d acted immediately, they might even have found the boys alive,” says Bridgland. That was also the finding of the TRC. According to TRC testimony, Lolo and Siboniso were kept bound hand and foot at Mandela’s home for several days before being executed.

But Mrs Mandela had become mysteriously untouchable. “From that hour on,” says Bridgland, “the police screwed up so comprehensively it’s hard to believe it wasn’t intentional.”

The Sono/Shabalala case docket went missing. Just over a month later, police phone taps presumably revealed that Mrs Mandela had sent a Kombi load of MUFC members to “arrest” four youngsters who were living under the protection of Rev Paul Verryn in Soweto’s Methodist church manse.

Mrs Mandela suspected Verryn was sleeping with the boys, a charge the cleric has always denied.

Back at chez Mandela, the boys were savagely beaten to extract confessions, with Mrs Mandela leading the interrogation – and the beating. One of them, 14-year-old Stompie Seipei, was so badly injured that he couldn’t hold a coffee cup. F

ootballers took him to Dr Abu-Baker Asvat, an Indian (sic! "Asiatic" a´int better!!!) activist who often treated wounded members of the undergound.

According to TRC testimony, Asvat recommended that Stompie be rushed to hospital, but that was likely to attract police attention, so he was murdered instead.

Shortly thereafter, Dr Asvat was murdered too (by an ANC hit quad?) – shot dead in his surgery by gunmen who claimed that Mrs Mandela had promised to pay them R20,000.

According to TRC testimony, Soweto police didn’t want to hear this; they allegedly beat the suspects until they agreed to withdraw their story about Winnie and describe themselves as ordinary armed robbers.

For Bridgland, the nadir came in 1991, when police mounted what was essentially a show trial against Winnie and others for the murder of young Stompie.

“Winnie claimed she was in Brandfort on the night of the boy’s murder,” says Bridgland. “The cops knew she was lying because they heard her talking on her telephone in Soweto.

If they’d wanted, they could have blown her alibi out of the water and secured a murder conviction. Instead, they kept quiet.”

Winnie was found guilty only on lesser charges, and her brief prison sentence was reduced to a fine on appeal.

Police also played a role in silencing Katiza Cebekhulu, another key figure in the Stompie trial. Former MUFC member Cebekhulu, who now lives in the UK, was the subject of Bridgland's 1997 best-seller, Katiza's Journey. (Bridgland wanted to title it, "Winnie Mandela: The True Story," but publishers were too scared. – Ed.)

Katiza was one of the footballers sent to the Methodist manse to collar Stompie and other alleged “child sodomites”. He also took part in the subsequent murder, and came to regret it.

According to Bridgland, “Katiza decided to tell the truth at Winnie Mandela’s trial. Word leaked out of his change of heart, and he was advised to go on the run if he wanted to stay alive.

He had been hiding in various townships for three months when on 21 January 1991 a police car drew up alongside him and he was taken to Protea police station.

He was ushered into the office of Captain Fred Dempsey, the Soweto Murder and Robbery Squad officer in charge of investigating alleged MUFC offences”.

Bridgland went on: “Katiza assumed he would be handed over to the Transvaal Attorney-General’s office because he was one of the co-accused in Winnie’s trial that was about to begin in the Rand Supreme Court. Instead, Dempsey’s officers took him to Winnie’s Diepkloof house.

According to Katiza, 'They [the police officers] spoke to her in Afrikaans and then handed me over to her. I couldn't believe it.

I refused to get out of the car, but they grabbed me and pulled me out. Jabu Sithole [another co-accused in the Stompie case] tied my hands behind my back and took me to the same back room in which Stompie lay after Winnie had beaten him'.

“There Winnie and other Football Club members began to kick Katiza all over. He told me: ‘I couldn’t do anything because my hands were tied. I was in the middle of a circle of them. My teeth began to be loose and some fell out. They beat me until I can’t feel the pain: I couldn’t feel anything’.”

The Football Club then poured boiling water over Katiza’s head, arms, legs and shoulders, and when Winnie ordered, “Take him!,” he was put into the boot of a car and escaped only when the boot shot open and he rolled out.

He reported to Baragwanath Hospital where his burns were treated and all his back teeth, broken and loosened in the beatings, were removed. He was on the run again.

After a time on the run, he called in on John Morgan, one of Winnie’s drivers, whom he regarded as a friend. Morgan gave him shelter, but one day, it was 8 February 1991, Morgan suggested Katiza go with him into central Johannesburg.

Morgan drove to the ANC’s then HQ in Sauer Street and took him into an office. A woman was sitting on a sofa with her back to him. When she turned around Katiza was so shocked to see it was Winnie that he burst into tears.

Two members of the ANC’s Special Operations unit, then led by Tokyo Sexwale, entered the room and Katiza was taken to Nelspruit, then Swaziland, then Mozambique before being flown to Lusaka. Which is where Bridgland found him, a prisoner in Kamwala Prison.

In an interview broadcast on BBC TV, Bridgland asked former president of Zambia Kenneth Kaunda why an innocent man had been incarcerated in one of his prisons. Kaunda said ANC president Oliver Tambo had asked him, on behalf of Nelson Mandela, to take Katiza out of circulation.

“I asked whether he was certain the message had come from Nelson Mandela,” says Bridgland. “Kaunda said: ‘Exactly!’”

(Bridgland and Katiza are now working on a new book, described as a "forensic inquiry" into this and related cover-ups. Among those whose role will be examined is famed civil rights lawyer George Bizos – see Why did the TRC fail to subpoena Bizos? below.)

George Bizos SC

As an outsider, Fred Bridgland struggles to understand South Africa’s view of the legendary Mrs Mandela; we devote, he believes, all attention to the spider-like Winnie, and almost none to the insignificant flies caught in her web.

This story is little different: we have heard much about politics and relatively little about humble parents who spent a quarter-of-a-century anguishing about their sons’ fate. Let us try to remedy that.

After reporting Lolo’s disappearance in November 1988, Nicodemus Sono and his wife heard nothing for two months.

Then police picked them up and took them to a morgue, but Lolo was not there.

After that, more silence.

Nicodemus went to Winnie’s house to ask questions. According to his account, recorded by Bridgland:

"She told me that after the Kombi left my house [on 13 November 1988], the Football Club had dropped him off at a place where he asked to be dropped off. I asked her: Where? She didn't reply or look me in the eye."

Nicodemus returned again and again with the same anguished questions, but no clear answer ever came. Just before Nelson Mandela’s release, in February 1990, he called at Winnie’s house three times in a single day.

“Each time she refused to admit me,” he told Bridgland. “I suppose I had become a nuisance. I’ve never spoken to her from that time.”

In March 1995 Nicodemus and his wife Caroline were summoned to Cape Town by South Africa’s new police commissioner, General George Fivaz, who asked them to tell him the story of the disappearance of Lolo and Siboniso.

On their return from Cape Town, the Sonos were visited by officers of a special police unit in Pretoria working on unsolved cases. They asked for the number of the original docket – the one opened on the day after Lolo’s disappearance.

Nicodemus gave it to them.

A few days later the Sonos received a visit from a man they had never met before – Captain Fred Dempsey, the cop who handed Katiza over to Winnie. “Dempsey asked why Pretoria wanted the case number when he was already conducting the investigation,” said Nicodemus.

“And he demanded to know why we had gone to see Fivaz when we knew the effort he was making. I told him we knew no such thing and that he had never even troubled to find us before.”

Nicodemus telephoned Dempsey several times after this visit, but there was no reply.

More years went by.

Winnie was divorced from Nelson, but she remained a prominent ANC MP, constantly fulminating against the Great Compromise engineered by her former husband and exhorting the masses to push for true revolution.

These radical positions earned her a following that seemed completely uninterested in her moral standing.

In 2002, Parliament complained that Winnie was submitting “outrageous” expense claims. In 2003, she was found guilty of fraudulently taking money from the ANC Women’s League’s funeral fund and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment, reduced to a fine on appeal.

None of this dented her popularity. When she stood for election to the ANC’s national executive in 2007, she came first, an outcome that confirmed her standing: she was, and remained, The Queen.

As for Nicodemus, he grew old, lost hope and died in 2011 without ever finding out what had become of his son.

To be sure, he lived to attend TRC hearings where various members of the Mandela Football Club offered various versions of Lolo and Siboniso’s final hours, but these were so contradictory and in some aspects so inconceivable that the mystery remained unsolved.

In fact, it remains unsolved today, given that NPA investigators have yet to reveal what led them to those paupers’ graves in Avalon cemetery, and what light this may shed on the identity of Lolo’s killer or killers.

Nicodemus’s widow, Caroline, continues to hope that the truth will soon emerge.

If it does, we may have to re-evaluate our understanding of South Africa’s turbulent 1989-1994 transition.

All that’s clear at this point, is that faceless men at the top of South Africa’s white power structure ordered police to take no action against Winnie Mandela, and to keep certain evidence against her under wraps.

Perhaps they were hoping to use the evidence to blackmail her husband [or as a trade-off? – Ed].

And perhaps they were serving our collective best interests.

If police had moved against Winnie, Nelson would have had to come to her defence – because he loved her, yes, but also because she was one of the ANC’s most popular leaders.

Scarcely a week after Stompie’s murder, the press reported that Nelson Mandela, still incarcerated in his “prison residence”, was actively involved in attempts to resolve the crisis surrounding his wife and her “soccer team”.

According to a UPI report, “Mandela has met his wife twice over the past two weeks about the controversy that has caught anti-apartheid leaders off guard.

With the permission of the authorities, Mandela last week also had talks with the leader of the Methodist church, Rev Stanley Mogoba, and with three legal advisors”.

Mogoba is quoted, stating: “Mandela has a personal interest in the case and is personally involved in resolving it.”

Had the apartheid authorities not collaborated in the cover-up, driven into a corner, Mandela would in all likelihood have been forced to dismiss the charges as a fabrication, break off talks and to return to violence.

Many many more might have died

So perhaps we all benefited from Nicodemus Sono’s quarter-century of pain.

And perhaps we should let sleeping dogs lie.

Luckily, we can probably rely on the ANC to do just that.

If the decision to exhume the bodies and reopen the case was indeed intended to stop Winnie’s support for Malema, the need has passed; young Julius has been crushed, and Winnie no longer presents a threat to anyone. Under the circumstances, why prosecute her?

In all likelihood, the story will just fade away again, as it has so often in the past.

‘Any move against Mrs Mandela would have upset the political apple cart’

In November 1997, the TRC began a special investigation of the criminal activities of Winnie Mandela’s bodyguards, styled the Mandela United Football Club.

Almost immediately it became a probe into the relationship between Mrs Mandela and South Africa’s security police, hardline authoritarians who held the line against “terrorism” and routinely tortured or even murdered those suspected of involvement in it.

But not Winnie Mandela. When she was involved, the hard men became curiously ineffectual. (Similarly, then Transvaal Attorney-General Klaus von Lieres appeared to have closed the door on prosecuting or even questioning Winnie.)

Consider this exchange between the SAP’s Superintendent Andre Kritzinger and the TRC’s Hanif Vally, who was trying to find out more about an incident where Mandela footballers carved slogans into the bodies of the Makhanda brothers, Peter and Phillip, for allegedly being sellouts.

Vally: “Where was this incident alleged to have taken place?”

Kritzinger: “It occurred in Mrs Mandela’s house.”

Vally: “Why did the Security Branch not take a statement from Mrs Mandela regarding this matter?”

Kritzinger: “Experience has taught us that if you have to go to Mrs Mandela’s house to interrogate her and her daughter, I can guarantee you would be shown the door.”

***

Or consider this one: Colonel Jan Daniel Potgieter was tasked with investigating Winnie’s ties with the armed underground. He conceded that evidence implicating Mrs Mandela was never acted upon.

Potgieter: “There was definitely a prima facie case against her. The names were ready and we were just waiting for Klaus von Lieres (the Attorney-General) to tell us to go ahead with the investigation.”

Roelof du Plessis (attorney for Potgieter): “Colonel, were you ever informed why the prosecution did not take place?”

Potgieter: “No, I just concluded that the political changes had caught up with us and that it wasn’t a desirable thing to prosecute Mrs Mandela at that stage.”

(And later.)

Potgieter: “It was quite clear to me that November 1989 had arrived and for all practical purposes the ANC and the PAC were unbanned.

I then realised that never in a month of Sundays was Von Lieres going to prosecute.”

All officers conceded that they were required to treat Mrs Mandela with kid gloves. Field Intelligence Officer Paul Erasmus summed it up thusly:

Erasmus: “Any move against Mrs Mandela would have upset the political apple cart. The Security Branch questioned why legal actions and prosecutions were not taken against Mrs Mandela but the general feeling was that she should be left alone as far as possible.”

The TRC found that certain security branch officers had been “less than candid” and that certain members of the Soweto police were guilty of negligence: “If they had taken quick and decisive action regarding the charges laid by Mr Nicodemus Sono and the late Mr Shabalala, their children would possibly still have been alive.”

Regarding the murder of Dr Abu-Baker Asvat, the TRC found that the police were negligent.

“The police investigation failed to access potentially vital information from the Security Branch and its records of telephone transcripts and other intelligence information.

As for the Attorney-General, the commissioners were “left with the distinct impression that he was at pains not to prosecute Mrs Mandela”.

Why did the TRC fail to subpoena Bizos?

Advocate George Bizos SC is one of South Africa’s most distinguished human rights campaigners.

He challenged police lies at dozens of inquests into deaths in detention; represented struggle icons Nelson Mandela, Mac Maharaj and Govan Mbeki; authored books titled In Pursuit of Justice and Odyssey to Freedom, detailing his work on behalf of truth and justice.

In 1991, Bizos was retained to head Mrs Mandela’s defence team when she was charged with complicity in the kidnapping and assault of Stompie Seipei. (At a prior trial, her “chief coach”, Vusi “Jerry” Richardson, was convicted of his murder.)

A key witness with regard to Mrs Mandela’s involvement in the assaults and kidnapping – and, he claimed, murder of Stompie – would have been Katiza Cebekhulu, but he failed to show up in court. (He had in the meantime been abducted by an ANC special operations unit to Lusaka.)

Another key player who the prosecution chose not to call to testify was Colonel Daniel Bosman, the secret policeman whose minions were tapping Winnie’s phone.

This left Bizos free to argue that Mrs Mandela could not be held responsible for the assaults because she wasn’t there; she was in Brandfort, 320km away.

Bizos called two witnesses to support this claim – Winnie’s friend, Xoliswa Falati, and her driver, John Morgan. The judge found Mrs Mandela guilty of four charges of kidnapping, for which she was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment, and of four charges of accessory to assault, for which she got a further one year.

The judge concluded that it was reasonably possibly true that she was in Brandfort when the serious assaults took place (on appeal her sentence was reduced to a R15,000 fine).

At the time, this seemed yet another feather in Bizos’s cap. But things have since gone extremely pear-shaped.

First, Xoliswa Falati and John Morgan retracted their evidence, saying that they’d been asked to lie to protect Mrs Mandela. She was indeed at home on the fateful day.

Then Katiza surfaced in a Zambian prison (see main story), claiming that Bizos’s friends in the ANC had kidnapped him and spirited him out of the country to keep him quiet.

And finally, Colonel Daniel Bosman admitted to the Truth Commission in l997 that his phone tap annihilated Mrs Mandela’s alibi.

She wasn’t in Brandfort at all. She was in Soweto, talking on her telephone.

Bosman swore that the murder and robbery squad detectives working on the Stompie case were informed of this. But they never used his evidence.

His explanation: “They said the information was ‘too sensitive’ to use. I reached the conclusion that people were afraid of her.”

Given these reversals, the Truth commission found that Winnie’s case, as presented by Bizos in 1991, was untrue from start to finish.

“Madikizela-Mandela was present at her home (in Soweto) and not in Brandfort,” said the TRC’s final report.

“She was present during assaults (on Stompie and others) and initiated and participated in the assaults.”

Last December, journalist Fred Bridgland wrote an article in The Citizen wondering why the TRC hadn't subpoenaed Bizos to explain the apparent fabrication of Mrs Mandela's alibi.

An anonymous reader offered an answer: “All and sundry bent over backwards not to embarrass the ‘negotiating process’,” said their letter.

“The apparent complicity of advocate George Bizos in the Winnie cover-up is ignored.”

Bizos did not respond well.

Indeed, he laid a complaint with the Press Ombudsman, at the same time demanding that The Citizen hand over the address of the reader who had made this scurrilous accusation.

Clearly, we can’t have anyone impugning the dignity of South Africa’s most famous lawyer.

Or can we? At least until such time as we are given a detailed and convincing explanation.

(postscript: Winnie´s daughters Zindiswa and Zenani are soon to "come into their own", claws sharpened and teeth ready for biting the "Others"!)

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Onsdag, 26 Juni 2013 - Publicerad i Offensiv 1056

Socialisten Liv Shange hotas av utvisning från Sydafrika

De senaste veckorna har ledningen för ANC och Sydafrikas president Jacob Zuma försökt peka ut ”utlänningar” som ansvariga för ”anarkin” inom gruvsektorn, efter att gruvindustrin skakats av en oemotsvarad strejkvåg i svallvågorna efter massakerna på 34 gruvarbetare i Marikana förra året.

@ http://workerssocialistparty.co.za/campaigns/liv-shange-defence-campaign/

I centrum för anklagelserna står Liv Shange, tidigare kommunfullmäktigeledamot för Rättvisepartiet Socialisterna och numera organisatör för systerorganisationen Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM) i Sydafrika.

Söndagen den 23 juni hotade myndigheterna på framsidan av rikstidningen Sunday Independent med att Liv inte skulle släppas in i landet igen, efter att hon nu besöker sin familj i Sverige med sina tre barn.

Medan tidningen rapporterade om att både sydafrikanska Migrationsverket och säkerhetspolisen ”letat efter” Liv kommenterade ANC:s generalsekreterare Gwede Mantashe att ”verkligheten är den att det är en svensk medborgare som står i centrum för anarkin inom platinaindustrin”.

Även president Zuma har anklagat ”skumma internationella element och rörelser” för oron i platinagruvorna.

Liv och medlemmarna i DSM stödde aktivt gruvarbetarestrejkerna förra året.
De hjälpte till att organisera och länka ihop strejkkommittéer från olika gruvor tillsammans i en nationell strejkkommitté som senare utvecklades till en nationell arbetarkommitté.

Det var också ur gruvarbetarnas oberoende kommittéer som initiativet till grundandet av det nya Workers and Socialist Party (WASP, Sydafrikas socialistiska arbetarparti) kom. Liv, som har lärt sig att tala flytande zulu, talade på många arbetares massmöten och har blivit ett välkänt ansikte i kampen.

– Att anklaga någon enskild, jag eller någon annan för ”anarkin” i gruvorna är löjeväckande. Krisen beror istället på att gruvarbetarna behandlas mer eller mindre som slavar och när de nu protesterat har de mötts av kulor, säger Liv Shange.

”Helt klart är att den ANC-ledda regeringen försöker attackera Liv för den roll hon och DSM har spelat i gruvarbetarstrejkerna förra året och i byggandet av ett nytt alternativt parti – Workers and Socialist Party (WASP).

Dessa hot är en del av en serie attacker som gjorts nyligen på gruvarbetare och fackliga aktivister.

DSM och WASP kommer inte låta denna attack passera i tystnad”, skriver DSM i ett pressmeddelande som svar på attacken.

Liv Shange flyttade till Sydafrika 2004.

Hon är gift med en sydafrikan och har tre barn som är med