Tales of Beatings, Abductions: Winnie Mandela Faces Probe

She was the shy young social worker who married black nationalist leader Nelson Mandela and then, often openly defying the white government, boldly carried the Mandela name and cause through her husband’s three decades in jail.

Movies have been made about Winnie Mandela’s courage, her months in solitary confinement in the 1970s and her banishment to a rural town in the early 1980s. And she remains one of a handful of anti-apartheid campaigners whose name is respected worldwide as a symbol of black resistance to this country’s white minority rulers.

But these days her reputation is in trouble. A young black activist has disappeared and two of his colleagues say they were all beaten last month at her home.

On Thursday, Minister of Law and Order Adriaan Vlok opened a sweeping investigation into the allegations against her and members of the Mandela United soccer club, who live at her house and serve as her bodyguards.

The woman long known to blacks as the “mother of the nation” has become an embarrassing problem for the liberation movement that looks to Nelson Mandela as its natural leader, anti-apartheid activists admit privately.

Her most serious troubles began Dec. 28, when several members of the Mandela soccer club kidnaped four youths from a church house, held them in Winnie Mandela’s home for several weeks and allegedly beat them, police said. The most severely injured youth, 14-year-old Stompie Mokhetsi, has disappeared and some in Soweto fear he may be dead.

Key Deputy Heads Probe

“We are using all the resources of the force to make sure we get to the bottom of this,” said Vlok, who appointed the deputy director of his criminal investigations division to head the probe.

Mandela United, a group of young blacks in their teens and 20s, often appear alongside Winnie Mandela at public gatherings, wearing soccer uniforms with the green, black and gold colors of the outlawed African National Congress.

Some of the youths, who live in and guard her home, have occasionally threatened journalists and other visitors. They have a reputation as bullies who make unprovoked and indiscriminate attacks.

In July, the Mandela family home in Soweto was destroyed in a fire set by black high school students who had been feuding with Mandela United members.

About 150 Soweto residents, including respected leaders, met recently to discuss Mandela United and later urged that the team be disbanded.

“It is a disgrace that she is bringing shame to the Mandela name like this,” said John Makapela, a 74-year-old Soweto resident, reflecting the thinking of many in that sprawling township outside Johannesburg. “What must Nelson think. . . .”

Leading anti-apartheid activists also have called on her to get rid of the soccer team. Nelson Mandela, in messages from the prison where he is serving a life sentence, and the exiled leadership of the ANC have suggested privately that she abolish the team.

“Winnie can’t afford to have the Mandela name dragged through the mud by associating with this bodyguard detachment, which has been accused of thuggery,” Anglican Archbishop Desmond M. Tutu was quoted as saying recently in New York.

Winnie Mandela contends that her bodyguards were not kidnaping the four youths but instead were rescuing them from the Soweto home of the Rev. Paul Verryn, a Methodist pastor who she says had been sexually abusing them.

The Rev. Peter Storey, the Methodist bishop for the southwestern Transvaal province, said the allegations of sexual abuse were groundless “and were intended to deflect community anger away from the violent treatment meted out to the young people by their abductors.”

Verryn, who was away from his house when half a dozen Mandela United members arrived in a van and abducted the four youths, has in the past sheltered dozens of young black activists fleeing political violence. No one seems to know what prompted the Mandela team to select him as a target.

“Everybody likes Rev. Verryn,” said one man who attends Verryn’s church. “He always kept food in the fridge and used to invite us and other people for meals. He is a reverend in the true sense.”

The boys later told church officials and their lawyers that they were beaten frequently inside the Mandela home and that Winnie Mandela was occasionally present.

One of the youths escaped on Jan. 11 and alerted church officials, who, through other community leaders, contacted Winnie Mandela and two other youths were released 12 days later. The fourth youth, Stompie Mokhetsi, is still missing.

A few days later, a woman and a teen-age boy showed up at a Soweto police station and accused Verryn of immoral acts with a minor, Vlok said.

Winnie Mandela has acknowledged that early in January, she took one of the youths allegedly molested by the pastor to be examined by Dr. Abu-Baker Asvat at a Soweto clinic. A few weeks later, Asvat was murdered. The assassin, a young black man, escaped.

2 Suspects Sought

Police say they are searching for two men in connection with Asvat’s murder. Vlok said he also is investigating the possibility of a link between Asvat’s death and Mandela United.

Until Thursday, the South African police say, officers had been reluctant to investigate the allegations against Winnie Mandela.

“We are cautious not to give any indication that we are vindictive against her,” Vlok explained. “But we are concerned about what happened to these kids, and we want to get to the truth of this matter.”

Vlok said the police have investigated charges against Mandela and her soccer team in the past, “but when it came time to go to trial the witnesses didn’t want to go or just disappeared.”

In recent years, Mandela United has been accused of several assaults. In a court case last year, a member of the team was charged with abducting three young black men in Soweto, holding them at Winnie Mandela’s home and carving the words “Viva ANC” on the thigh of one of them. The victim testified that Winnie Mandela witnessed the incident.

Winnie Mandela refused to be interviewed for this article. She told NBC News that it was “absolute nonsense” to suggest that a rift had developed between her and her husband or her and the ANC. But she has declined to disown the team.

Johannesburg bureau researcher Mike Cadman contributed to this story.