Like most South Africans I was glued to my television set for many hours as SA bade farewell to Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, freedom struggle hero in her own right.
As I watched, I felt the sadness of having lost someone I had known and admired at her fearless best, but mixed in with that was anger because of my painful recollection of events when she was at her worst.
I was intimately involved in those events, so it was hard to watch one speaker after another either ignore or aggressively deny the dark shadows that they still cast. By the time of her funeral her life story was already being rewritten with every ounce of heroism recalled and every notorious deed airbrushed out.
None involved on the day found the moral courage to at least acknowledge her transgressions. Instead, her funeral was a state-sponsored canonisation with serious implications for the truth.
Winnie's saga was a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions, which also inflicted deep injury on the ANC. I believe that the movement's failure to hold her accountable for her offences in the late '80s and early '90s marked its first public slide from the moral high ground of the struggle.
This woman, who in her prime had stood for an unwavering, almost superhuman resistance to wrong, became a troubling liability.
She often said, "I am the product of the masses of my people and also the product of my enemies," and it may well be that the wounds those enemies inflicted on her soul damaged her irreparably.
My engagement with her certainly marked one of the most painful chapters in my life.
ROOTS IN THE METHODIST CHURCH
We first met in 1985 in Majwemasweu, a bleak reservation for blacks outside the white farming town of Brandfort, where Winnie had languished under official banishment since 1977. Located in the Free State 350km from Johannesburg, her new home might as well have been in a foreign land. The language spoken there was Sesotho, while Winnie was from the Xhosa-speaking Eastern Cape. Winnie's roots, like those of Nelson, were in the Methodist Church and as leader of the denomination I wanted to bring her some encouragement.
Elizabeth and I were driven from Bloemfontein by the local bishop, Jack Scholtz, and his spouse, Joan, both of whom had offered spiritual and practical care to Winnie since her banishment began. Jack and Joan had had their own problems defending Methodist social principles in conservative Bloemfontein, and right-wingers had once stoned their home.
Arriving in the township, we were joined by the local minister, Themba Mntambo, who had made it possible for her to launch a daycare centre for pre-school children in the church building. We drove up to House 802, just another dreary two-room matchbox house typical of black townships across the land. A security police vehicle was parked up the road but we ignored its occupants and walked up the short path. Some flowers planted around the front door were a brave attempt at home-making in the dust. Standing in the doorway with arms spread wide in welcome was a smiling Winnie Mandela.
Winnie was strikingly beautiful. In addition to her intelligence and warmth, in her presence I had no problem understanding why a young Nelson Mandela had become smitten by this fiery woman - and why other men later became entangled with her. During the Brandfort exile reports of alcohol, drugs and men had begun to surface and I sensed that the layers of pain behind the smiling welcome were manifesting in damaging ways. By this time in her life, Winnie had been horribly abused both in and out of jail. Her times of imprisonment were hellish, with long periods of solitary confinement - sometimes completely naked - plus physical and mental torture.
A year after our visit and with typical defiance, Winnie broke her banning order and came home to Soweto. She took up residence again with her daughter Zinzi in the house in Vilakazi Street that she had shared with Nelson before his imprisonment. She dared the authorities to arrest her, but they were hesitant because her bold move coincided with the growing international momentum of the Release Mandela Campaign. All over the world people were demanding that Nelson be set free, and in his absence Winnie, with her Evita-like magnetism, became the obvious pin-up for the campaign.
Her home was seen as an essential stop for visiting dignitaries and diplomats and she was showered with gifts and honours. Somebody coined the title "Mother of the Nation" and the African-American community in the US in particular elevated her to celebrity status. In their eyes Winnie could do no wrong and I would argue that this unqualified adulation added more damage to her psyche on top of all the horrors of police brutality.
ENFORCERS DOING HER BIDDING
Then, fatally, she surrounded herself with a shady group of tough youths nicknamed the "Mandela United Football Club", who played little soccer. Instead they became Winnie's enforcers, doing her bidding in Soweto with whatever brutality they thought necessary.
Winnie carried no official position with the underground ANC cadres, but she set herself up as an alternative authority in the area, issuing orders and demanding obedience.
Emma Gilbey describes how Mandela United began to "almost ape" the behaviour of the security police: "Winnie's boys would burst into a house with much clamour and show of force, before compelling an intended victim into a vehicle and driving him off to a place of interrogation - Winnie's house. Once there, a mutated form of police questioning would occur, with verbal abuse, kicking, punching, whipping, beating and slapping.
Instead of mock executions at gunpoint, victims would be hung from the ceiling; instead of being hooded or blindfolded, they would have plastic bags placed over their heads, and have their faces shoved in buckets of water. Instead of electric shocks, their flesh would be carved and, as cited in one case, battery acid would be smeared into the wounds. And instead of being dangled out of the window by their ankles they would be thrown high up into the air and left to hit the floor - a practice known as "breakdown".
Around these activities there was a curtain of silence. Proof of the fear inculcated by the Mandela United thugs was that although I moved in and out of Soweto regularly at the time, I remained unaware of the growing crisis. I saw Winnie from time to time to arrange for international guests to meet with her clandestinely in spite of her banning order. On these occasions she was full of charm and nothing appeared to be amiss. Visitors went away enthralled by her. It was only in July 1988, when news came that the house in Vilakazi Street had been burned down, that I heard another narrative. I went to the site hoping to offer her some sympathy, but found the charred ruin deserted. Over the road an elderly man leaned on his gate watching me. I said, "This is so evil. The system never stops persecuting her."
His reply was unexpected: "Bishop, this was not the system." He pointed up the road. "The boys from that school did it. This was done to punish her football team for raping one of the schoolgirls there." I was aghast, wanting deeply not to believe him. I drove to Winnie's office in the valley below, trying to process what I had just heard. As if to confirm the old man's words, I found the gate closed and guarded by a couple of surly youths who demanded aggressively to know what I wanted. I was irritated by their attitude.
"I've come to minister to Mrs Mandela," I said. "I am her bishop and I don't have to answer to you." There were bullying undertones to the brief altercation that followed but I was finally admitted and found Winnie in a mood of deep depression, staring into nowhere.
She and daughter Zinzi sat in silence while a wealthy African-American friend, Robert J Brown, hovered in the background, acting as if he was the authority in the household. I later learned that Brown was a North Carolina businessman with a dubious background who hoped to cash in on his ties with Winnie. She ultimately indicated without much conviction that "the system" had burned her house but the conversation left me concerned that the neighbour may have been right.
After that, reports of other bullying actions by the football team began to surface and I learned from SA Council of Churchesgeneral secretary Frank Chikane that a "crisis committee" had been formed to try and rein in their activities. It consisted of Frank and anti-apartheid stalwarts Sister Bernard Ncube, Cyril Ramaphosa, Beyers Naudé, Sydney Mufamadi and Aubrey Mokoena. Nelson Mandela himself had requested them to act. Meanwhile, with the help of Brown, Winnie moved into a much more commodious house in Soweto's upmarket Diepkloof Extension. This was to become the site of the horrifying excesses that sucked me into the Mandela United violence.
BRUISED AND TERRIFIED
Late in the night of January 7 1989, Kenny Kgase, a 29-year-old man, arrived at the church horribly bruised and terrified, saying that he had escaped from Winnie Mandela's house and pleading for protection. It transpired that 12 days previously, he and three others, Thabiso Mono, 20, Pelo Mekgwe, 20, and Stompie Seipei, who was only 14 years of age, had been forcibly abducted from the church mission house of Reverend Paul Verryn in Orlando East. The kidnappers were members of Mrs Mandela's football team. Suddenly the most famous woman in the anti-apartheid struggle appeared to be involved in kidnapping and brutal assault.
I had appointed Verryn as the only white Methodist minister in Soweto because of his remarkable ability to relate across racial lines, his deep commitment to the black struggle and his long-standing therapeutic work with people damaged by the apartheid system. He had credibility in the community and I believed that he had the theological tools to interpret the Gospel effectively in that context.
Paul was not married and would have had the small mission house to himself had he not thrown it open as a sanctuary for fugitives from the apartheid system. Young men fleeing harassment and others, coming out of detention, sought refuge with him and so there were often as many as a score of them around the house. They would sleep wherever they could and, as was the case in thousands of Soweto homes, the idea of anybody, including Paul, having an entire bed to himself, was unheard of.
Members of the underground movement knew they could entrust to his care youths threatened or damaged by the "system". This was a risky ministry because, in the overheated political tensions of Soweto in the late '80s, the ruthless security police were not the only ones to fear; the merest whisper suggesting that one might harbour informers - impimpi - could lead to retribution. Youths coming out of detention were twice victimised, first by torture in the police cells and then by the understandable suspicion that they may have been "turned".
Paul had practised his ministry of sanctuary consistently for some years and seemed to be a master at treading the fine line required, but as is often the case with passionately committed people, he had little respect for anybody's authority except his own and was obstinate to a fault. Very quick to lay down the law with others, Paul jibbed at taking instructions himself.
In late October of 1989, he had reported to me that rumours were being spread in Soweto that he was sexually abusing youths under his care. He had also reported this to Chikane. Paul's sexuality was not an issue for me. In Winnie's trial, when her advocate tried to make homosexuality an issue when cross-examining me, we clashed strongly.
RUMOURS WERE FALSE
But Paul's stewardship as a minister towards vulnerable youths in his charge needed to be morally blameless. I asked for an assurance that the rumours were false and given my trust in his integrity, accepted his word on that score. Chikane had suggested the closure of the sanctuary ministry but I felt the work was too important and in any case was not prepared to take such drastic action on the basis of rumour.
I did, however, instruct Paul to enforce a couple of simple rules to protect himself. First, a line had to be drawn at the bedroom door; no matter how crowded the house, he was no longer to permit anyone to sleep in his bedroom, let alone his bed. In addition, a supervising committee was to be formed in the Orlando East Methodist congregation to share the responsibility of care.
Paul agreed, but unfortunately never implemented the first and most important instruction. What was seen by me to be a sensible safeguard for his reputation was probably dismissed by him as his bishop's ignorance of the pressures under which he and his charges lived. He was to pay a dreadful price for this disobedience.
During November 1988 there was some good news: Paul reported to me that a woman named Xoliswa Falati, with her daughter, had sought shelter because her house had been burnt down. She was now providing a "maternal, stabilising presence", he said. I was pleased to hear that discipline had improved and with an adult woman in the house Verryn also felt better protected from rumour.
Neither of us realised that Falati had been planted by Winnie Mandela. Two other newcomers at that time were Stompie Seipei and Katiza Cebekhulu. Katiza was a highly strung, damaged youth on the run from KwaZulu-Natal. Stompie was a 13-year-old legend hailing from Tumahole township outside of the town of Parys, where he had a reputation for leadership among the youth activists. Because of his commitment to the struggle he had become something of a mascot to the Mass Democratic Movement (MDM).
I once found him in my office after a protest meeting. Looking at this child sitting on a chair with his feet not reaching the floor, I asked what he was doing there. I was told, "He's waiting for the security police to leave, so he can get out of the building." Laughingly I inquired what he had to fear. "He led the march," was the reply. In spite of his tender age, by the time Stompie entered Verryn's house he had already been detained for a year and tortured. Some suspected that he had been turned.
BUNDLED INTO A VAN
The scene was now set for the drama that followed. At around 8pm on December 23 1988, while Verryn was on leave, members of Mandela United burst into his house. Falati pointed out Kenny Kgase, Thabiso Mono, Pelo Mekgwe and Stompie, and they were grabbed and bundled into a waiting van. Katiza was also taken but I am unsure if this was against his will.
Led by a nasty character named Jerry Richardson, the abductees were taken to a room behind Winnie Mandela's house where, according to Thabiso and Pelo's later account to me, and Kenny Kgase's evidence, they were confronted by Winnie.
She accused them all of having sex with "the white priest" and Stompie was also accused of being an informer. Winnie began hitting them with her fists, then a sjambok, and then others, including Katiza, joined in. The vicious assaults continued until, in Pelo's words, "our eyes could not see for a week".
He said they were told to accuse Verryn or be killed. During the mêlée, perhaps because of the "informer" charge, or because of his small size, Stompie was given the "breakdown" treatment - thrown up into the air three times and allowed to drop with a sickening thud to the concrete floor.
STOMPIE CONFESSED
According to one version of events, when the others were finally told by Richardson to go and clean up, Stompie's torment continued.
In Gilbey's reconstruction, after further assaults, Stompie confessed to having sold out four comrades in Parys, which would have sealed his fate.
The prisoners were kept under careful watch for some days after being forced to clean up their blood in Winnie's back yard and the room where they had been assaulted. There are claims that highly respected activist doctor Abu-Baker Asvat was called in to examine Stompie at some point and said his brain was seriously damaged.
Sometime on Sunday, January 1 1989, Stompie was told to gather his things and go with Richardson. He was told he was going home.
According to Katiza, by then he was "soft on one side of his head and couldn't see out of his eyes. He was also vomiting". We now know that Stompie's throat was cut later that night by Richardson and another thug named Slash, and his body left in the veld...