During nine days of testimony, three dozen witnesses described the woman once known as the ““mother of the nation” directing a gang of young toughs who abducted, beat and killed suspected police informers and others who aroused her formidable anger . The goons were called the Mandela United Football Club, and last week its ““coach,” Jerry Richardson, said Winnie ordered the abduction of Stompie Seipei, a 14-year-old boy suspected of informing, and then supervised his torture. ““Mami was sitting the re watching,” said Richardson, a convicted murderer. Later, he said, he finished off the injured boy with a pair of garden shears. ““I slaughtered him like a goat,” he recalled.
Madikizela-Mandela, 63, denied all the charges. ““They are ludicrous, of course,” she said. She claimed she had known nothing about the football club’s activities, even though the ““players” lived in a cottage behind her Soweto home. But in 1991, W innie was convicted of ordering Stompie’s kidnapping and beating; her six-year sentence was reduced to a $3,200 fine. Now her testimony struck many as unconvincing. ““I don’t think we got the truth from Winnie,” said a commission investigator. The panel does not have the power to prosecute, but it can refer matters to the attorney general. Commission officials said they would try to do that in Winnie’s case. And South Africa’s police commissioner, George Fivaz, planned to reinvestigate two disappearance s linked to her and the football club.
Winnie’s supporters recalled her long, brave fight against apartheid and her current efforts to help the poorest black South Africans. ““Winnie is no worse than the white men who murdered hundreds of black children in the name of apartheid,” said G ift Mbatha, a Soweto shopkeeper. It was still too early to tell whether the devastating testimony would hurt her political prospects. Next week she will run for deputy president of the ruling African National Congress. Her candidacy is opposed by ANC lea ders, including her ex-husband, but if she wins, she will be strongly placed to become deputy president of the country in elections scheduled for 1999. By then, South Africa may have a lasting verdict on Winnie Mandela–the ““mother of the nation” or the bloody empress of Soweto.
