Winnie At Bay: `Mother of the Nation' linked to a long litany of horror

Winnie Mandela strode into a Johannesburg hall yesterday, flanked by bodyguards, for a five-day hearing on the activities of her notorious Mandela United football team. She is linked to eight murders and an array of violent crimes. Mary Braid watched.

Most of the time Winnie Mandela looked nonchalantly at the witnesses through her trademark bejewelled glasses. One murder accusation prompted her to laugh out loud. But as the accounts of killings, assaults and jealous attacks on pregnant love rivals piled up in the sweltering room, packed with the world's press, even the ice-cool Mrs Mandela, in her stylish white-and-powder blue suit, began to look a little ragged.

The allegations were not new. For eight years the parents of missing township teenagers and former members of the "football club" - bodyguards set up by Mrs Mandela in the late 1980s and who terrorised Soweto - have been telling journalists that the "Mother of the Nation", though feted by the world, was, in fact a crazed, brutal murderer.

What made her appearance a world media event yesterday was that her accusers - all 34 - were finally gathered together and for the first time given official recognition though the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the body charged with exposing atrocities from the apartheid era.

The hearing was spiced up by the ANC's apparent abandonment of the woman whose face still adorns the entrance of its Johannesburg headquarters and who is still president of its Women's League. Last week a scathing press article, sanctioned by her former husband, President Nelson Mandela, suggested she had at last been hung out to dry.

To cast out the darling of the grass roots is a risky strategy. Next month Mrs Mandela runs for the deputy leadership of the ANC as her ex- husband steps down as leader. This week may make or break her.

Anyone else faced with allegations like these would quietly retire from public life. As the first five accusers gave evidence yesterday in what Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the TRC chairman, emphasised was a search for truth, not a trial, there was speculation that it could, yet, come to that. Mrs Mandela has ignored ANC advice to ask for amnesty, which would protect her from future criminal prosecution.

The most dramatic testimony yesterday came from John Morgan, who claimed to have been Mrs Mandela's driver. He said he saw Mrs Mandela start beating Stompie Seipei Moeketsi, 14, in her Soweto home a few days before he was found on wasteland with his throat slit. Mrs Mandela has denied any part in his murder.

Mr Morgan said the boy, suspected of being a police spy, was kept at Mrs Mandela's house for three days and repeatedly assaulted. "When I found him his face was as round as a football," he said. "I tried to help him drink some coffee and feed him some bread."

But the evidence of former associates is often tainted; Mr Morgan was convicted, like Mrs Mandela, of being involved in Stompie's kidnap - and the most compelling - and moving - evidence came from parents with stories that were the stuff of horror films, not the proud liberation struggle.

Nicodemus Sono, who had considered Mrs Mandela a friend, said that she brought his son Lolo to his house one night in November 1988.

He was lying bleeding and bruised in the back of a van. Mrs Mandela claimed Lolo was a spy.

"I have never seen that side of her before," said Mr Sono. "She was very aggressive ... She said she was taking this dog away. The movement would know what to do with him." Mr Sono said he pleaded for his son's life. Lolo was never seen again. Mr Sono said the ANC refused to investigate his son's disappearance.

As Mrs Mandela fanned herself with paper and the room began to swelter, Nomsa Shabalala accused her of murdering her son and demanded Mrs Mandela give her his remains. She claimed she was terrified of Mrs Mandela, who appeared not to mind "the sight of blood in her house. "We were advised not to approach her," she said. "Winnie has bodyguards and ... I was scared that the fate that befell my son would befall us."

Sex complemented violence. Phunlile Dlamini broke down as she told how Mrs Mandela assaulted her in a fit of jealousy after finding she was pregnant by Shakes (Johannes Tau), a team member with whom Mrs Mandela was also sleeping. Ms Dlamini said Mrs Mandela attacked her with her fists before ordering team members to beat her. The assault lasted five hours. She said her child - now nine - was mentally handicapped as a result.

Ms Dlamini claimed Mrs Mandela's daughter Zinzi persuaded her mother to stop the assault. The hearing was told Zinzi, sitting behind her mother at the hearing, denied this.

Mrs Mandela is not scheduled to give evidence until Friday. But yesterday everyone wondered if they were witnessing a political beginning or end. Was she finally being drummed out by the party? "I do hope so," said one ANC stalwart in the hall.

That was inside. Outside, her supporters were brandishing placards that read "Injury to Winnie Mandela is injury to South Africa."

The Winnie fan club turn-out was pathetically small. But those that were there were disciples. Rita Koza, of the Soweto branch of the ANC Women's League, said: "We in the struggle understand the context Winnie was working in. She had to be strong.

"It was a time when we said `Let us fight, let us die and let us kill if necessary'."