Today, Mrs. Winnie Mandela died at the age of 81. President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa referred to her as as “the voice of the resistance” for her opposition to apartheid during white rule and when her husband Nelson Mandela was imprisoned. Congresswoman Maxine Waters praised her as a hero for many who were inspired by her. For most S. Africans she is simply the “Mother of the Nation”.
However, all the media accolades and worldwide praises heaped upon her at her death glosses over what she was in real life. In every war or civil war, there are victims and casualties. Atrocities committed in the name of victory are many times overlooked by the winners of such struggle. During the 1980’s while her husband was in jail, she formed the Mandela United Football Club (MUFC), a curiously named organization which was basically a goon squad ran directly by Mrs. Mandela. The MUFC were the enforcers in Soweto. Police informers were rounded up and burned alive in a practice called “necklacing” in which a burning tire is placed over the victims neck who is then burned alive. Mrs. Mandela publicly supported the practice.
Mrs. Mandela got into trouble was when the MUFC, at her direction according to court testimony of her bodyguards, kidnapped four teens from a church facility where they were staying and taken to Mrs. Mandela’s home. While there, they were brutally beaten and tortured. The four were kidnapped because they were suspected of being police informants. Stompie’s body was later found at a rubbish dump near the Mandela home brutally beaten and with his throat cut. The other three boys were not killed.
Below: Stompie Moeketsi
While the four boys were held at the Mandela home, a family friend and doctor Dr. Abu-Baker Asvat came and checked on the condition of the boys at the request of Mrs. Mandela. While at the home, Mrs. Mandela insisted that Dr. Abu-Baker Asvat issue a medical certificate that the boys were sexually abused so she could use it as evidence against the white church where the boys were staying. The doctor refused and afterwards, Dr. Abu-Baker Asvat was also murdered on the orders of Mrs. Mandela for being a potential witness to her crime and refusing to issue the certificate. This according to the bodyguards of Mrs. Mandela and the two men who were contracted to kill the doctor by Winnie.
Below: Dr. Abu-Baker Asvat
The actions of Mrs. Mandela were well-known to many in S. Africa. The topic was and still is taboo. But because of her celebrity status as the former wife of Nelson Mandela (even though they had divorced), she was protected by the government. Despite the 18 counts of murderous atrocities directly linked to her by her close confidants, bodyguards, and members of the MUFC, she was never charged with those murders. All the victims in these cases were black. All of the publicly recorded testimony against her were declared unreliable by the S. African court and the only charge which she served time for was the kidnapping of the four boys but not the subsequent murder to Stompie and the doctor though the sources were the same in both cases.
So while the world heaps accolades upon Winnie Mandela at her death, keep in mind the victims that were left in the garbage dumps and roadsides during her fight against apartheid.
