Over the last couple of weeks, officials of the ANC quietly began passing the word that, for all intents and purposes, the Mandelas' 34-year marriage was over and that Winnie would soon "retire" from politics. The new scandal erupted after a bizarre incident took place between Winnie and Xoliswa Falati, a longtime friend who had also been convicted with Winnie at last year's trial. As Falati told friends, one night in late March, Winnie had come looking for her in a drunken rage, brandishing a pistol. The apparent reason: Falati had begun to tell a new story about the kidnapping because Winnie refused to give her a share of the defense fund that had been raised for the appeal. "She came at me like a madwoman," said Falati, who had been living in a back room in Winnie's house. "She was screaming at me that I was going to prison."
After fleeing the confrontation, Falati leveled even more explosive accusations against Winnie. For starters, she said that she had perjured herself at last year's trial when she testified that Winnie had been hundreds of miles away when the kidnapped youth, 14-year-old Stompie Seipei, was tortured and murdered by members of the so-called Mandela United Football Club, a gang of thugs loyal to Winnie. In fact, said Falati, Winnie had personally ordered and supervised Seipei's torture, possibly because he was believed to be a police spy.
But Falati's accusations did not stop there and could conceivably lead to fresh legal charges against Winnie. She said that Winnie was responsible for a string of other murders. Falati also told friends that Winnie had drawn up a hit list of ANC leaders she wanted killed. Among those supposedly marked for assassination was Cyril Ramaphosa, the secretary general of the organization and regarded by many as Nelson's heir apparent; according to Falati, Winnie hoped to install herself as her husband's successor.
That would have been unlikely in any case. According to ANC leaders, Nelson, who was released from prison in February 1990, had become increasingly estranged from his wife. Part of the reason was her involvement in the Seipei case. But much had to do with difficulties in their personal relationship. Winnie's drinking had become a serious problem. And then there was her alleged sexual indiscretion. For years she has reportedly been involved with a man named Dali Mpofu, a lawyer 29 years her junior. (Mpofu calls all such accounts "rubbish.") According to ANC officials, Nelson finally lost all patience with Winnie last year when he tried to reach her while she was visiting the U.S. and Mpofu answered the phone in her hotel room.
Friends say that for a long time Nelson felt an obligation to support Winnie, who, during his imprisonment, had proved a courageous and forceful leader of the antiapartheid movement. He seemed to believe that the years of separation and the harassment and repression that Winnie had suffered at the hands of the South African police were at least partly responsible for her erratic behavior. Friends of the couple have long believed that Winnie is mentally unbalanced, but she has rejected all suggestions that she see a psychiatrist. Now, with crucial talks under way concerning the formation of a multiracial government and the strong possibility that he could be named one of the country's interim leaders in the near future, Mandela may have concluded that he needed to put his own house in order first.
BILL HEWITT
ARTHUR GOLDSTICK in Johannesburg and JANE SIMS PODESTA in Washington, B.C.
- Contributors:
- Arthur Goldstuck,
- Jane Sims Podesta.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
