| Time | Summary | |
| 00:28 | Hello. Welcome to a special edition of the Truth Commission Special Report. During the last few days several reports have been published in South Africa alleging Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s involvement in the killing of Dr Abubaker Asvat at his Soweto surgery on 27 January 1989. The main source of these new reports is Nicholas Dlamini, presently serving a life sentence for the murder of Dr Asvat. Dlamini has applied for amnesty from the Truth Commission. The claims in his statement about the murder of Dr Asvat are similar to those made by Katiza Cebekhulu. Cebekhulu was supposed to be a witness at the trial which followed the death of teenage activist Stompie Seipei in 1989. But Cebekhulu disappeared and resurfaced later in Zambia. This afternoon a book called Katiza’s journey by British journalist Fred Bridgland was launched in Cape Town. Cebekhulu’s earlier statements that Winnie Madikizela-Mandela had ordered the murder of Dr Asvat are repeated in detail in Bridgland’s ...more | Full Transcript and References |
| 01:46 | I have watched in painful silence my character being butchered in the media. I have witnessed my contribution to this democracy being vilified and ridiculed. I have seen confused panic in my grandchildren’s tearful eyes, attempting to work out whether I am the demon that I am portrayed. I have agonized over the deafening silence of friends who stand and watch with sadistic pleasure over this. I have watched state serial killers receive state pardons. South Africa I ask, is it public interest or the public’s right to know that my name is littered all over the streets of this country, that the media vandalise my dignity without just cause, that ludicrous propositions of complicity in the murder of a comrade should be based on banal assertions of convicted murderers. When will I enjoy the respect that is accorded everyone? When the brutal machinery of the apartheid government selected me for special treatment and abuse, I understood; when the moral turpitude of the previous ...more | Full Transcript |
| 08:27 | Tonight the BBC is broadcasting a documentary narrated by Bridgland which also contains allegations that Mrs. Mandela participated in the killing of Stompie Seipei. The documentary will later be broadcast internationally. Because of its global exposure we feel it is in the public interest to show South Africans what the world is seeing on this issue. We must point out that the contents of this documentary are untested evidence and that it contains a number of subjective interpretations. The sources featured here will face cross examination when their amnesty applications are heard. The Truth Commission will hear Mrs. Mandela’s version of events when she appears before them on the 25th of this month. It will also hear from the convicted leader of the Mandela United Football Club, Jerry Richardson, who is serving a life sentence for Stompie’s murder. Let’s look now at the BBC’s documentary. | Full Transcript |
| 09:26 | How many people did Winnie kill? Has she ever been in jail for those murders? No. // If anyone gets into the bad books of Winnie she can resort to any solution of her choice. // ‘Roar young lions roar!’ // Now I can say Mrs. Mandela is a murderer and a killer of the nation. She’s no longer mother of the nation. | Full Transcript |
| 10:18 | Winnie Mandela, president of the ANC Women’s League in the new South Africa. One of the most famous women in the world. This film sheds new light on Winnie and her personal team of bodyguards, known as the Mandela United Football Club. | Full Transcript |
| 10:37 | One of its members was Katiza Cebekhulu; he vanished seven years ago. Today he has a damning story to tell about Winnie Mandela. // There’s a sense in which what Katiza has to say confronts the soul of this nation, and usually people who do that end up on a cross. | Full Transcript |
| 11:05 | ‘Winnie Mandela & The Missing Witness’ // February 1990, a moment the world had waited for. After nearly 30 years in jail Nelson Mandela was free, his wife Winnie by his side. Icons of the freedom struggle, partners in a great love story, their destiny was to set their people free. | Full Transcript |
| 11:52 | Nelson in prison was more mythical than real; Winnie was the visible living symbol of black resistance, especially when in 1986 the apartheid government declared a state of emergency. As South Africa edged towards civil war she remained defiant. // ‘This is now the right time to take your country. We shall use the same language the Boers are using against us; they know only one language, the language of the caspirs. We have no arms, we have stones, we have boxes of matches …’ | Full Transcript and References |
| 12:45 | Amidst the chaos black communities were ripped by tension and mistrust. There was horrific black on black violence, alleged informers were hacked or burnt to death. It was in these anarchic times that Winnie recruited young men for her bodyguard. The football club appeared glamorous but was in fact a mafia ruling by violence and intimidation. | Full Transcript |
| 13:08 | The club became infamous when linked to the murder of Stompie Moketsi. | Full Transcript and References |
| 13:17 | The key witness to Stompie Moketsi’s last hours was Katiza Cebekhulu. He was abducted from South Africa before he could tell his story. He speaks for the first time from his place of exile, thousands of miles from home, about the inside story of Winnie Mandela and her football club. His story is extraordinary as is his journey. | Full Transcript |
| 13:45 | It all began in 1988 when Katiza left his home in Zululand. // I was just fed up with the violence. I boarded a train to Johannesburg. I didn’t have any money. As soon as the train started to move the tears filled my eyes, because I’m thinking where am I going, I’ve never been to Johannesburg, where am I going to sleep. | Full Transcript |
| 14:25 | Park station, Johannesburg, the city of gold. It was here that Katiza arrived, as have countless other Zulu migrants. Unsure where to turn he followed a black commuter and bought a ticket for a suburban train. Little did he know it but he would be sucked into the heart of a tragedy concerning South Africa’s foremost family. The train took him to Orlando in the huge black township of Soweto. He wandered the streets looking for somewhere to stay. Then came a fateful encounter. | Full Transcript |
| 15:13 | I explained that I come from Natal where there is violence. I don’t have a place to stay. I don’t have anybody. He handed me to a higher authority. So that’s where I meet Mrs. Mandela. It was the first time I saw her. | Full Transcript |
| 15:32 | Winnie Mandela was widely hailed as the mother of the nation. She was renowned for her courage and indomitable spirit. And in the 1970s she became a martyr when the white government banished her to a remote town called Brandfort. She was callously treated. On return to Soweto in 1985 it was as a heroine. Sir Kennedy said she was a source of inspiration. She built the Mandela United Football Club. With thousands of youths fleeing the security police there was no shortage of recruits. Winnie’s commander and chief of the football club was Jerry Richardson. He idolized her and commanded the bodyguard from her house here in Soweto. | Full Transcript |
| 16:34 | She introduced me to Jerry Richardson who was in charge of the house. She introduced me to Slash, Shoes and other boys. I didn’t have clothes to wear so she gave me a tracksuit for Mandela United. They wrote on the back Mandela United Football Team. | Full Transcript |
| 17:00 | The football club rarely kicked a ball. A law onto itself, it ruled amid the anarchy of the time. Winnie presided as it made arrests, interrogated people and dispensed street justice. | Full Transcript |
| 17:19 | ‘It is our joy and our salvation always and everywhere to give you thanks and praise. Through Jesus Christ, your Son our Lord. You created all things and…’ // Working in the heart of Soweto was Paul Verryn. He was compassionate and widely loved. Verryn’s church, also in Soweto, provided a similar refuge to Winnie’s football club for youths fleeing the security police. // ‘… God bless Africa, guard her children, guide her leaders and give her peace.’ | Full Transcript |
| 18:00 | It was in December. Mrs. Mandela called me and said please I want you to do me a favour. I said what favour and she said go to the priest’s house, you tell Paul that you don’t have a place to sleep. If he accepts you try and sleep with him in the same bed. The next morning you tell the secretary to Paul Verryn, Xoliswa Falati that Paul raped you. | Full Transcript |
| 18:28 | Winnie hated Paul Verryn. Katiza said she was jealous, jealous of his popularity, jealous of the funds he received from anti-apartheid groups. She saw Verryn as a rival and set out to destroy him. He became the target of an elaborate plot devised by Winnie. | Full Transcript |
