Two former anti-apartheid leaders yesterday launched a blistering attack on President Nelson Mandela's former wife, linking her to kidnapping and murders and declaring she is not fit for public office.
The leaders of the now-defunct Mass Democratic Movement (MDM) and the United Democratic Front (UDF) condemned Ms Winnie Madikizela-Mandela as being ringleader of a gang of "thugs" who viciously tortured, killed and slandered their enemies.
Mr Azhar Cachalia, former UDF national treasurer and now head of Secretariat for Safety and Security, told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) that Ms Madikizela-Mandela created her own "personal vigilante gang" in the 1980s.
Her notorious supporters, called the Mandela United Football Team, dispensed a "frightening brand of justice . . . on those who crossed their paths," Mr Cachalia said.
The UDF, formed in 1983, and the MDM, formed in 1989, were the internal arms of Mr Nelson Mandela's then-banned African National Congress (ANC), which operated in exile during much of apartheid rule when many of its leaders were driven abroad or jailed.
Mr Cachalia said the MDM distanced itself from Ms Madikizela-Mandela in February 1989 after her supporters were accused of murdering a young child activist and severely beating several others.
"At best for Mrs Mandela, she was aware and encouraged this criminal activity," Mr Cachalia said. "At worst she directed it and actively participated in the assaults."
Mr Cachalia said "all reasonable efforts" by Mr Nelson Mandela, at the time still in jail, and the ANC's late president, Mr Oliver Tambo, to disband Ms Madikizela-Mandela's "gang of thugs" failed.
Mr Murphy Morobe, a former spokesman for the broadly-based MDM, accused Ms Madikizela-Mandela and her followers of "outraging" residents of the sprawling Soweto township.
"We are outraged at Mrs Mandela's complicity in the recent abductions and assault of Stompie (Seipei)," who was subsequently killed after being accused of being a police informer, Mr Morobe testified.
He was reading from a 1989 statement distancing the MDM from Ms Madikizela-Mandela and her supporters.
"Those of us right in the centre of things (Soweto) felt the intensity of the problem," Mr Morobe said.
Ms Madikizela-Mandela has accused agents of the white-minority regime in the so-called STRATCOM secret police branch of masterminding the murder accusations against her.
The commission is probing 18 accusations of human rights abuses, including eight murders, linked to Ms Madikizela-Mandela. She is expected to testify at the end of the hearing, which may be early next week.
In earlier testimony yesterday several senior ANC members described to the commission how they tried in vain for 10 days in January 1989 to convince Ms Madikizela-Mandela to release a number of youths she had abducted.
More than 10,000 South African police officers were arrested in the 16-month period between January 1996 and May 1997 for crimes ranging from armed robbery and theft to rape and corruption, the Safety and Security Minister, Mr Sydney Mufamadi, revealed to parliament.
Replying to a written question, Mr Mufamadi gave the number of alleged crooked police as 10,313 - almost one-tenth of the force. The crimes committed during that period included 107 armed robberies, 653 thefts, 193 cases of corruption, a number of cases of illegal possession of firearms, rape, reckless driving and murder.