Special Report Transcript Episode 99, Section 1, Time 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 government isolated me for depraved slander and propaganda, I understood and persevered; I understood, because the truth was to them a heresy and persevered because I believed that the morality of our cause will vindicate all of us. I do not understand when agents in our fledgling democracy undermine the structures of the TRC and swop information with the media, with the purpose to damage the essence of my being. I do not understand when people who know the truth are mute about these matters. One day, not in the distant future we will say enough is enough. One day we will all agree that it is not proper for the country or I to bleed at the hands of power mongers. Comrade Asvat was a personal friend, a family doctor and a man of deep compassion. He sort/ sought me out in Brandfort at the risk of torture and imprisonment. He helped me run a clinic for the community of Brandfort and surrounding areas. To accuse me of his murder is depravity of a cruel kind. Any journalist or editor worth anything would interrogate the veracity of assertions by murderers who did not even bother to apply for amnesty. They did not because theirs was conduct of idiotic criminality and no more. In 1995 I complained through my lawyers to the commissioner of police, George Fivaz about this Mbatha and Dlamini being tortured by the police to implicate me in the murder of Dr Asvat. At that time the media quoted him as saying the allegations were so serious that they demanded immediate clarification in the interest of Mrs. Mandela and the police. The allegations, if true, would constitute a serious blot on the police and a grave infringement of Mrs. Mandela’s personal rights. It is 1997 and I ask. What has become of that investigation? Where is Cebekhulu? Is the state machinery unable to get hold of this unsophisticated person so that he tells the truth? He must come home to stand trial he ran away from and to say who helped him leave the country and why. It is not enough to have foreign parliamentarians come and testify before the TRC on issues that they have no factual knowledge of. South Africa demands more. It is the search for the truth. Why are we unable to get to the truth so that my right to fair treatment can be asserted? I intend to testify before the TRC, I intend to bare my soul to the scrutiny of my country. I beg that it be done in public. I beg that these issues be tested by the vigilance of the public. Let this serve as a public spectacle of the last kind. Let me claim the right to decent treatment once and for all. Thank you ladies and gentlemen.

Notes: Winnie Madikizela-Mandela

References: there are no references for this transcript