Bodies Exhumed in Murders Tied to Winnie Mandela

[DonViejo]

Source: AP/TPM

MICHELLE FAUL MARCH 12, 2013, 10:10 PM

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Forensic scientists on Tuesday exhumed two bodies believed to belong to young activists last seen 24 years ago at the home of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela as police said they have opened a new murder investigation.

The case reopens a dark chapter in the life of the then-wife of Nelson Mandela. Many South Africans still revere the 76-year-old as “the mother of the nation,” but others have feared as a vengeful and heartless operator. She had “the blood of African children on her hands,” her former friend Xoliswa Falati told South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

In the late 1990s, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission found that Madikizela-Mandela was responsible for the disappearances in November 1988 of 21-year-old Lolo Sono and his friend Sibuniso Tshabalala, 19. But nothing was done to pursue allegations she was directly involved in their killings, even though her chief bodyguard Jerry Richardson told the commission he and a colleague stabbed the young men to death on Madikizela-Mandela’s orders.

Mortuary records indicate the two bodies that were unearthed on Tuesday had multiple stab wounds

Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/bodies-exhumed-in-murders-tied-to-winnie-mandela.php?ref=fpb

[Raine1967]

1. She's a strange woman.

In 1991, Madikizela-Mandela was sentenced to six years’ jail for kidnapping and assault in the death of 14-year-old James Seipei “Stompie” Moeketsi, who also had last been seen at her home and who was beaten to death. She appealed, the assault conviction was overturned and the sentence reduced to a suspended jail term. (snip)

The commission noted her contempt “not only for the commission but for the notion of accountability.” She had been incensed that the commission treated victims and perpetrators of apartheid equally.

“They have a nerve to suggest that freedom fighters who fought for freedom must account for their actions while the perpetrators of the worst atrocities are walking the streets laughing at the efforts of our struggle,” she said at the time.

The final report said: “The commission finds that those who opposed Mrs. Madikizela-Mandela and the Mandela United Football Club, or dissented from them, were branded as informers, and killed. … The commission finds further that Mrs. Madikizela-Mandela herself was responsible for committing such gross violations of human rights.”

She does not, IMO, represent Nelson Mandela. What she did, allegedly, in her husbands name is reprehensible.


What a sad and terrible story.

[ReRe]

2. A very sad chapter...

.... I think the violence that she lived with all of her life drove her crazy, or she had a gene inside that led to paranoid schizophrenia and she couldn't get medicine to help control it. Was unable to think straight any more. I'm not apologizing for her either. When you fight fire with fire, it just doesn't do you any good. But if you're not in your right mind amidst all that senseless violence. There were no doubt many senseless atrocities of black on black deadly violence, but the only one we hear about is Winnie Mandela. Now, I haven't done any serious look at the history of South Africa, and perhaps there have been studies on black on black violence there. But this about Mrs Mandela is the only one I have heard of (in South Africa.)

But for history's sake, it is best to get the story straight, no matter how ugly it was. I don't think it shines any negative light on Nelson, as one person has no real control over another human being, be they a spouse,a child, a parent or a sibling. Just my thoughts...