A former bodyguard to Ms Winnie Mandela bodyguard pointed at her in a South African courtroom yesterday and said: "I saw her kill Stompie." In the most dramatic testimony so far at a Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearing on the former South African first lady and her notorious bodyguard unit, Mr Katiza Cebekhulu repeated an allegation that he saw her plunge a shiny object into a 14-year-old boy.
Mr Cebekhulu also made the claim in a recent book by the British journalist, Fred Brigland.
Once described as the "Mother of the Nation," the president of the African National Congress Women's League, Ms Madikizela-Mandela (63), was also accused yesterday of having "blood of African children on her hands".
Her accuser, Ms Xolisa Falati, was testifying on the second day of TRC hearings into allegations that Ms Madikizela-Mandela repeatedly and brutally abused the human rights of black South Africans.
Ms Falati, once a loyal member of Ms Madikizela-Mandela's entourage, was a co-accused with Ms Madikizela-Mandela in the 1991 kidnapping trial in which both women were convicted.
Admitting that she lied in the 1991 trial to protect her then leader, Ms Falati told the TRC yesterday that Ms Madikizela-Mandela had led the assault of Stompie Sepei-Moeketsi. With three other young men, the teenager had been kidnapped from the Methodist Church manse in Soweto because of Ms Madikizela-Mandela's stated belief that they were being sodomised by the resident clergyman. The clergyman has always denied this.
Ms Falati told the hearing the boys were beaten in a back room of Ms Madikizela-Mandela's Soweto home by members of her entourage. Stompie died a few
days later. "I was ordered to sing to drown out the voices of those who were crying for mercy . . . After the assault, Mrs Mandela said they [the football club members] must clean up the blood," she said.
The former wife of South African president, Mr Nelson Mandela, arrived yesterday in a gold and black floral outfit, looking tired and red-eyed. She often appeared amused by Ms Falati's evidence.
Ms Falati glared at Ms Madikizela-Mandela across the room. "My hands are not dripping with the blood of Africa's children," she said.
"She dehumanises a person. She reduces a person to nothing. She regards herself as a demigod, as a super being. I tell you, making a cult out of a leader is always a mistake," Ms Falati shouted.
Responding to a question from his lawyer, Mr Cebekhulu made stabbing motions and said: "She was stabbing. She stabbed twice."
His testimony differed from that of another disillusioned follower of Ms Madikizela-Mandela, Mr John Morgan, her driver at the time of kidnapping. Mr Morgan had earlier told the TRC that Stompie had died in a back room of Ms Madikizela-Mandela's house and that he had been ordered to "take the dog and dump it".
Mr Cebekhulu levelled another damning accusation at Ms Madikizela-Mandela. He claimed to have seen her whipping Lolo Sono, a youth who disappeared in November 1988 shortly before Stompie was kidnapped. Like Stompie, Lolo Sono was accused of being a police spy.
In his testimony to the TRC, Lolo's father, Mr Nicodemus Sono, described how he had last seen Lolo in the company of Ms Madikizela-Mandela and members of the Mandela United Football Club who - according to her detractors - served as her stormtroopers. Mr Gabriel Pelo Mekgwe, a veteran of the African National Congress, told the TRC he was one of the youths assaulted by Ms Madikizela-Mandela's entourage and that she struck the first blow. "She was part of the assault. She beat us with the open hand. She started the assault and after that she left," he said.
Ms Madikizela-Mandela denied all the charges against her and, in some cases, even denied that she had ever known her accusers.
In the case of Mr Cebekhulu she went a stage further, formally laying a charge of crimen injuria (similar to slander in South African courts) against him.