Winnie: Africa's most dangerous woman?

By Gwynne Dyer

LONDON (JP): Sometimes, a priest is precisely the wrong person for the job. Last week in Johannesburg was one of those times.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu's job was to run the inquiry of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) into the activities of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, ex-wife of South Africa's President Nelson Mandela, demagogue, and murderer. He did it badly, and as a result the monster is still on the loose.

Desmond Tutu is a brave man who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his role in the anti-apartheid struggle, but nobody ever called him tough. He had no way of dealing with Winnie Mandela, who simply denied all her alleged crimes, regardless of the evidence.

This is unfortunate, because Winnie Mandela's ambition is to become deputy leader of the ANC in succession to Thabo Mbeki, who takes over from Nelson Mandela as ANC president this month. Then when Mbeki replaces Mandela as President of South Africa in the 1999 election, Winnie would be Deputy President, just one heartbeat away from control of Africa's only industrialized country.

That would be a calamity, for Winnie Mandela in power would be like Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana, Milton Obote in Uganda, even Mobutu Sese Seko in former Zaire. Like those first-generation African leaders, she has charisma, but no self-control. Like them, she would end up creating a nightmare of corruption and violence. Like them, she would ruin her country.

The men and women who dominate the ANC's present leadership are more like what the rest of Africa calls 'second-generation' leaders (even though they are the first generation of non-whites to govern South Africa). They have had time to think about what went wrong elsewhere in Africa, and they work hard to preserve democracy and the rule of law in South Africa.

It's an uphill struggle, because many poor South Africans want radical action to change their lives, and they prefer to listen to the simple solutions peddled by populists like Winnie. South Africa's economy grew more slowly this year than its birth rate, and unemployment is 30 percent. What have the poor got to lose?

Everything. Slow growth while the long-sheltered South African economy adjusts to globalization is hard to bear. The new class of privileged blacks alongside the privileged whites is very hard to bear if you live in a squatter camp. But it can get much worse than that, as many people elsewhere in Africa can tell you.

Three years after the end of white minority rule, South Africa is still a state of laws. Crime is rampant, but the government does not sponsor it; it tries to control it. Poverty is endemic, but the government has coherent strategies for fighting it. The economy is stagnant, but nobody is looting it, and it could yet be the engine of an African economic renaissance.

This is what the ANC government seeks to preserve, and what Winnie Mandela's rage and greed would destroy. That is why the TRC hearings on her reign of terror in Soweto in 1987-1989 were so important: if they had made her character clear to the nation, her potential for future trouble would have been greatly reduced.

The two weeks of testimony produced a huge amount of evidence to show that Winnie was personally involved in the six known murders and dozens of other assaults and 'disappearances' that are attributed to her gang of thugs and enforcers, the 'Mandela United Football Club'. And the whole country was watching.

But the TRC's case was undermined by the evasiveness of some senior ANC witnesses. It was weakened by the self-interest of some of her former accomplices, now seeking amnesty for their crimes, and by the non-appearance of other witnesses who were openly intimidated by Winnie's entourage.

It was mocked by Winnie herself, who denied even the very existence of the 'Mandela United' gang in 1988-1989. "If we believe your evidence, everybody else is lying," said TRC member Yasmin Snooka. "Yes," smiled Winnie Mandela. "It's true."

Above all, it was undermined by Archbishop Tutu, who was so eager for a happy ending that he pleaded with her: "You are an icon, a stalwart of the liberation struggle. You have no idea how your greatness will be enhanced if you said 'Sorry, things went horribly wrong'. Please," he sobbed, "I beg you. I beg you." Winnie condescended to reply: "It's true that things went horribly wrong....when we were away." And that was all.

Two convicted murderers had testified that she paid them to kill an uncooperative doctor. Three mothers had claimed that she had kidnapped or killed their children. Five eye-witnesses said they saw her lead the assault on 14-year-old Stompie Moeketsie Seipei in January, 1989. They were all lying, said Winnie.

At the end, when Winnie Mandela's story about being elsewhere during Stompie's murder was breaking down under cross- examination, Desmond Tutu cut the questioning short and invited everyone to the front of the court for a "reconciliation". Stompie's mother, betrayed by her own religious reflexes, was even suckered into embracing the woman who murdered her son.

Winnie never confessed, never apologized, never explained -- and she walked out of the TRC all but vindicated in the eyes of those who want to believe she is still the 'Mother of the Nation'.

The ANC Women's League has decided after great internal battles not to nominate her for deputy president at the party's triennial congress at Mafikeng on Dec. 18, but she may well be nominated from the floor. In any case she is still a serious candidate for the vice-presidency of South Africa in the 1999 election -- or even the presidency if she breaks with the ANC.

Winnie Mandela may never be the president of South Africa, but at the least she will continue to hover over the political scene, frightening investment away, undermining law and order, and making democracy harder to preserve. An opportunity to discredit her has been missed, and South Africa will be paying the price for years.