Mandela Will Eject Guards : ANC Asks Groups to ‘Open Doors to Her’

Winnie Mandela, heeding the advice of her jailed husband, agreed Saturday to eject members of her controversial bodyguard force from her Soweto home, effectively disbanding the group, a church official announced.

And leaders of Nelson R. Mandela’s outlawed African National Congress, in their first statement on the matter, acknowledged that Winnie Mandela had made mistakes but asked anti-apartheid leaders who shunned her to “open their doors to her in the interests of our people and the struggle.”

The developments Saturday appeared to be a concerted attempt by the ANC and the anti-apartheid movement to close ranks and curb the damage caused by the allegations of murder, kidnaping and assault that have been made against Winnie Mandela’s bodyguards, known as the Mandela United soccer club.

5-Hour ‘Pastoral Visit’

“It is important that there is maximum unity and no division that might cause more bloodshed,” the Rev. Frank Chikane, general secretary of the South African Council of Churches, said at an evening news conference. During a five-hour “pastoral visit” with Winnie Mandela, Chikane said, she revealed her decision to promptly move soccer club members out of her house.

“I’m doing everything I can at this stage to make sure there are no more murders,” Chikane said.

The soccer club, a 30-man force whose thuggery in Soweto has been widely condemned for months by civic leaders, has been accused of abducting four young men from a Methodist Church hostel, holding them at Winnie Mandela’s house and attempting to beat them into admitting that a white pastor had sexually abused them. (Church officials deny any abuse.)

One of the four abducted was Stompie Mokhetsi Seipie, a 14-year-old whom the ANC has hailed as “a committed young lion” in the liberation struggle. He was severely beaten and died of stab wounds.

Van and Bus Impounded

In its murder investigation, the police have impounded a van and bus used by Winnie Mandela’s bodyguards. Officers also are investigating possible connections between Seipie’s death and the subsequent killings of a Mandela United member and a prominent Soweto doctor.

Winnie Mandela’s stature has been severely shaken by the allegations. Leading anti-apartheid campaigners inside the country took the unusual step Thursday of publicly banishing her from the liberation movement.

But the ANC’s national executive council, after a two-day meeting at its Lusaka, Zambia, headquarters, delivered a more gentle rebuke to Winnie Mandela, wife of the ANC guerrilla whom millions of black South Africans consider their leader.

The ANC condemned the “unbecoming activities” of the club and acknowledged that she had previously ignored ANC suggestions that she disband the club.

“It is with a feeling of terrible sadness that we . . . express reservations about Winnie Mandela’s judgment,” the ANC said.

Praised Her Contributions

But the organization paid tribute to “what comrade Winnie Mandela has gone through and her immense contribution to the liberation struggle.” And the organization suggested that Mandela’s position as a symbol--rather than a card-carrying member of any anti-apartheid group--had made her “vulnerable to committing mistakes which the enemy (the white minority-led government) exploited.”

“We have every reason to believe that the club was infiltrated by the enemy and that most of its activities were guided by the hand of the enemy,” the statement said.

The ANC asked internal anti-apartheid leaders, many of whom are closely affiliated with the ANC’s goals, to “help her find her way (back) into the discipline of the mass democratic movement.”

Chikane, one of several community leaders tapped several months ago to serve on a “Mandela Crisis Committee,” said he visited Winnie Mandela’s home after speaking by telephone with ANC President Oliver Tambo.

At Husband’s Suggestion

Winnie Mandela told Chikane that her decision to move the youths out of the house came at the suggestion of her husband during a visit Wednesday at the prison farm where the 70-year-old Mandela is serving a life sentence for sabotage.