I like stories, I always have, I love books. As a young child growing up in a huge house in the North of England and few other kids to play with, books were my friends and confessors.
I came across a book recently, but it was a book that not only told a story, but indeed was a story all by itself. Penned in Britain, the book is all about South Africa and Winnie Mandela. Few think that Winnie was an angel; most people know that she had a few brushes with the law. Few however know the extent of her crimes: South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission basically let her off with a slap on the wrist.
A British foreign correspondent, turned author, let’s call him Fred Bridgland, well that is his name, while researching a story discovered a young almost illiterate black man languishing in jail in Zambia, let’s call him Katiza Cebekhulu, pronounced Cheb-eh-kooloo, where he had been incarcerated without charge or trial by the then Zambian President, Kenneth Kaunda, at the request of South Africa’s African National Congress. The ANC kidnapped Cebekhulu and sent him to Zambia to prevent him giving evidence in the trial of Mrs Winnie Mandela in connection with the murder of a 14-year-old boy, Stompie Moeketsi. Katiza had been a member of Winnie’s personal gang of thugs, the so-called Mandela United Football Club and had been involved in many atrocities, but when he saw Mrs Mandela stab Stompie Moeketsi to death behind her Soweto house he decided to testify the truth at her trial. So the ANC had to get rid of him with Kenneth Kaunda’s help. Bridgland found Cebekhulu in the Zambian prison, secured his release and got him to the United Kingdom where last year he was given right to stay after a 7-year legal battle.
In 1997 Fred wrote a book about the story and the BBC made a one hour documentary. However the story was only half told. In 2004, while serving a 3-year jail sentence in England after stabbing a neighbor in the arm, the illiterate Katiza pleaded with Fred to help him get his full story, in Africa and subsequently in Britain, published. Fred reluctantly agreed, on two conditions – that he research how Mrs Mandela and the ANC concocted a false alibi to make sure she never went to prison, and that Fred tell the story of many of the other “little people” who had been killed or harmed by Mrs Mandela and her Football Club. Fred would front the money and the revenues from the book would be split 3 ways: 45% Katiza, 45% fred, and 10% Nicholas. Who is Nicholas? Nicholas Claxton is a well known film maker and his 10% was a consideration because he intended to use his contacts to make a feature movie based on the new book. Claxton gave Cebekhulu £1,000 ($2000) to demonstrate the seriousness of his offer of help. By any standards Claxton’s was a pretty generous offer.
I was gloriously unaware of any of this until 3 weeks ago. I didn’t know Katiza, Fred or Nicholas. In 2007 I wrote a throw away article about Canada refusing a visa to Winnie Mandela, and how the month before the US had granted her one. Someone by the name of Katiza left a comment:
I was the man that accused Winnie Mandela of kill people in Soweto. I was kidnapped in South Africa by ANC and put in prison in Zambia on Mandela is order.
In 1997I went to South Africa to gave evidence against her but nothing happed to her.
My web site gets lots of cranky comments, but this one seemed genuine, the English was bad enough to be credible. I sent an email to the address provided inviting him to tell me his story. I received no reply, and within a few days forgot all about it.
Three weeks ago the dam broke, Katiza was back.
.you wanted to write story about me.
My Name is Katiza Cebekhulu. I just finished my Book Bout my life With Winnie and Mandela. I don’t know if you be interested in the Story
Kind regards
Katiza
serialisation of the book or possible extracts if possible
He had written a book and started to send me parts of his book. There was no way he had written it, he knows words but has no clue about grammar. Obviously it was ghost written, but lots of people use ghost writers, no harm no fowl. For some reason he copied me on some email threads that were none of my business, but they bothered me, they were emails from and to Katiza to Fred, Nicholas, the cover designer, and some lawyers. I found myself in a unique position. I had the big picture, Katiza was going rogue. I had a moral obligation to inform Fred and Nicholas. That resulted in another deluge of emails and attachments of letters from lawyers.
Things went quiet for a few days and I assumed that the three of them could resolve the issues. Not so, as I learned this morning Katiza has broken every copyright law in the land and published the book on Kindle with total disregard of the agreed contract, Katiza 100%, everyone else 0%.
Of course Sundays are not a good day for finding judges and getting injections etc. Fred is hotter than a pepper sprout. Thousands of dollars out of pocket and thousands of hours of research down the drain.
There is one word screaming at me, Why? Why would Katiza turn his back on the very man that tried to help him? This is a quote from the introduction of the legitimate book:
This book is the story of the redemptive journey of a young, uneducated man from the black townships of South Africa who became embroiled in the violence of Mrs Winnie Mandela’s notorious bodyguard-cum-vigilante group, the so-called Mandela United Football Club.
The man is Katiza Cebekhulu.
While reporting a general election in Zambia, as the Africa correspondent of a British Sunday newspaper, I found him languishing in a prison cell in which he had been incarcerated without charge or trial. At that time, Katiza was known only as the “missing witness” from the trial in Johannesburg, South Africa, of Mrs Mandela, accused of kidnapping and assaulting a 14-year-old boy, Stompie Moeketsi, whose battered and stabbed body had been found in a Soweto township mortuary.
With the help of the United Nations, the then President of Zambia, Frederick Chiluba, and others, I helped get Katiza released from prison and then be given temporary asylum in Britain, where I recorded interviews with him for several weeks as we sat together in a caravan on a Devon cliff-top. His story was extraordinary.
I am of the glass half full club rather than the glass half empty club. I like to see good in everyone. I want to think that Katiza is not acting out of greed, it is more of a cultural Knee Jerk, but what is acceptable in Soweto townships, does not work nearly as well in England, or indeed the US. Or possibly he is listening to poor council.
It is a shame that such an important book has become mired in such controversy.
Simon Barrett
14 users commented in " Winnie Mandela Expose Mired In Controversy "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackI am profoundly relieved to read this accurate account of the history of the book I ghost-wrote for Katiza Cebekhulu and which at the last minute he purloined and boasted as his own writing. The fact is that Cebekhulu is a very clever, barely educated man who only began to learn to read and write when he was imprisoned in England for stabbing his neighbour: I have been interpreting his barely comprehensible writings for years, and I know it will become clear to Kindle Amazon that the book “Winnie Mandela, Nelson and Me” was not his work, but mine and it will be removed from the kindle site. The tragedy is that this very important story will now never appear. I had the true version ready for publication, but after this betrayal it makes no sense for it to be published. Cebekhulu has betrayed me and many others, but above all he has betrayed himself.
What a great article but pathetic story. I’ve read your articles for many years now and I admire the fairness of your reporting. As a journelist and editor you seem to give the benefit of the doubt to all parties. I can see nothing in this for you except maybe a headache. Yet you react, as you say, to your “moral obligation” which represents your high character. As I see it that’s what is lacking here Mr Cebekhulu is lacking “moral obligation” and “character”. You hope it’s culture, a half full cup. I sure see it as half empty. It seems to me Cebekhulu is biting the hand that has fed him and had rescued him from prison. WTH
Mr Bridgland, I’m sure you are devastated and personally hurt right now. Taking a little time I hope you will reconsider publishing the true version. I hope your friend will come to his senses and realize what he has done. I don’t see it, but I hope Simon Barrett is right and part of this was a cultural problem. If it was now that he knows he will correct his error. It appears to me to be selfish greed but I hope not. Isn’t it a crime? Isn’t there some kind of theft laws concerning copyright? I know it is so hurtful to think you need to resort to laws after all you have done for him. I’m sure it almost feels like a death, the death of a friendship, death of a dream. Those feelings of grief are real and very painful but they can heal. So don’t close the door on publishing the book the correct way, give it some time.
I thank “Changing” for his/her kind words, but I regret to say this story will never now be published. Mr Cebekhulu has fundamentally discredited himself and also the story I ghost-wrote for him. After the fierce controversy, and the shamelessness of his mysterious church “guru” Andy Simes who led him into this disaster, no one here in Britain, in South Africa and now in the United States, no one would take me or the book seriously now. It saddens me beyond all telling of it because the stories that I hung on Katiza’s own story about all the “little people” who suffered at the hands of Mrs Mandela and her Mandela United Football Club have for the time-being evaporated. But I am planning another book based on all my research and I will keep Simon Barrett informed of its progress, which will be rapid. Thank you, and as the Zulus say in South Africa “Hamba kahle” — Go well ….
Mr Bridgland, I can only speak for a group on the US side but we do not believe you have been discredited in any way, nor has the book you wrote. Only a hand full even saw the book and from the comments were all appalled at Katiza. I think publishing the book, in its original form, re-negotiated with Katiza on the 10% end would be a very appropriate settlement. I don’t know the story of the church “guru” Andy Slimes but I can adamantly, positively, ferociously, argue that he did NOT represent Christ in his thieving, cunning, greedy behavior, if in fact he did advise of this shameful act. As Mr, Slime only needed to,read the book to know the depth of loyalty Mr Cebekhulu should have possessed towards you besides the contractual obligations of copyright. I just hate to see all the “little people” go unpunished, again denied a voice due to Mr Cebekhulu’s selfish act. As Simon might say, “I don’t have a horse in this race” but I still believe this great story can be salvaged. I would like to see Mr .Cebekhulu beg Mr Barrett to post a public apology for his shameful actions. As far as the potential for this book I agree with Mr Barrett, the cup is half full. I think it’s powerful message will still be heard.
Why has Fred Bridgland claimed to have rescued Katiza when it was Emma Nicholson ?
Changing you need to do your research more carefully …… At least read the prior book
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/an-incredible-journey-ends-in-bitterness-1158768.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/letter-the-baroness-the-journalist-and-the-refugee-1157661.html
“To Be Honest” raises an interesting and legitimate question. While it is true that I actually worked with Emma Nicholson to get Cebekhulu released from prison in Zambia, and that his freedom would not have been achieved without her heavy intervention, Cebekhulu subsequently was involved in a serious financial dispute with Nicholson. As part of a settlement with Cebekhulu, Nicholson set a condition, which he signed, that he should say nothing derogatory against her. It meant that he could say nothing negative about her in the book I wrote with him. He and I therefore agreed that we would simply fade Nicholson out of his entire story if it meant he could only write favourable things about a person of whom he was intensely critical. Therefore, her role in his release from prison in Zambia did not feature. As Oscar Wilde once observed: “The truth is rarely pure, and never simple.”
JOHANNESBURG Nov 28 – SAPA
RICHARDSON WAS A POLICE INFORMER: TRC HEARS
Jerry Richardson, former “coach” of the Mandela United Football Club, was a police informer, it was revealed at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission sitting in Johannesburg on Friday.
The information emerged during the testimony of national police commissioner George Fivaz at the hearing in Mayfair into human rights atrocities allegedly perpertrated by Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and the football club members who acted as her personal bodyguards.
They include murder, kidnapping and assault during a reign of terror they allegedly conducted in Soweto in the 1980s.
TRC investigator Piers Pigou, using information from a National Intelligence Agency document dated April 21, 1995, said Richardson was paid R10,000 by police for information on the whereabouts of the bodies of Lolo Sono and Sibusiso Tshabalala.
Earlier testimony has linked Madikizela-Mandela and her bodyguards to their murders.
Fivaz said Richardson indicated he would not give information on Sono and Tshabalala unless police paid him R10,000 they owed him for his informing activities while he was “coach” of the club in 1989.
“That motivated the informer claim (receipt advice)… it was to oil his hands to co-operate with the investigations into the disappearance of Sono and Tshabalala,” said Fivaz.
Pigou asked: “So the SAPS is involved in oiling the palms of a convicted murderer to implicate someone else?”
Fivaz responded that the R10,000 contributed to the investigation of the case, but said it was not normal police practice.
Pigou said he was concerned that documentation on Richardson and other informers was stored at police headquarters in Pretoria and had been destroyed.
Former security policeman Paul Erasmus said later on Friday that Richardson supplied the police with information on the Madikizela-Mandela household which was under 24-hour police surveillance.
His handler, Sergeant Stefanus Pretorius, was killed in Richardson’s house in November 1988 after Richardson arranged a trap for two Umkhonto we Sizwe members.
Fivaz earlier said Katiza Cebekhulu, who claimed he saw Madikizela-Mandela stab teenage activist Stompie Seipei to death in early 1989, was not a reliable witness.
Fivaz said Cebekhulu had so far given four versions to police of the death of slain Soweto doctor Abu Baker-Asvat, gunned down in his Soweto surgery in February 1989.
Cebekhulu and his protector – former British MP Baroness Emma Nicholson – were interviewed in London in July 1995 by Superintendent Hoothra Moodley.
“Superintendent Moodley was of the opinion that Cebekhulu’s knowledge about the death of Asvat was from conversations between himself and Thulani Dlamini and Cyril Mabatha, while they were detained at police cells in Lenasia, and Protea in Soweto,” Fivaz said.
Dlamini and Mabatha were both convicted of the murder of Asvat. Dlamini is applying for amnesty for the deed.
Mabatha in a BBC television interview on Thursday claimed he got the weapon for the murder of Asvat from Madikizela-Mandela.
Later on Friday, the commission heard from Erasmus and former Stratcom head Vic McPherson how apartheid security police disseminated a “veritable mass of disinformation” to local and international media to discredit the African National Congress and its leaders, in particular Madikizela-Mandela.
Erasmus told the hearing Stratcom was a security police organ driving the National Party government’s programme of disinformation against its enemies.
“Within the parameters of Stratcom, methods ranging from dirty tricks to sabotage were utilised freely.”
He said prior to 1990 he participated in the creation of a full-time Stratcom unit at John Vorster Square (now Johannesburg Central police station) to act against Madikiela-Mandela.
The unit “churned out propaganda” to the effect that she and Barclays Bank managing director Chris Ball were having an affair.
The aim, he said, was to discredit Madikizela-Mandela, her husband Nelson Mandela and the ANC as a whole. The NP government was concerned about the bank’s positive stance towards the ANC, Erasmus said.
“In 1990 the Nationalist government embarked on a four-year programme to reduce the ANC to just another poilitical party.
“Stratcom activities throughout were concluded on behalf of the State President, the Cabinet, sister intelligence departments, the Department of Foreign Affairs and other state departments.”
He added: “All projects and activities were carried out with the full knowledge of and approval of the relevant ministers who received details thereof from the Stratcom component of the State Security Council.”
Erasmus said he operated in Great Britain through an agent “who had a list of some 4000 conservatives worldwide and all of whom were anti-communist”.
“I supplied information to the effect that Mrs Mandela was giving her husband a hard time, was an alcoholic, was using marijuana and such similar character assassination ploys.”
Erasmus said he succeeded in getting this “dirt” to then British Prime Minister John Major’s Conservative Party government, to Major himself and to the international media.
“Several British members of parliament were involved in spreading this information, and (this was) bolstered by the creation of forged documents and hundreds of letters to the press, both locall and internationally.”
Stratcom also tried to discredit Nelson Mandela by spreading stories that he personally authorised his wife’s statement that the ANC would liberate the country with the necklacing method.
“This was widely reported in the international media.”
A victim of a “necklace” killing was usually assaulted before a tyre was placed around the victim’s neck, filled with petrol and set alight.
However, attempts to smear Nelson Mandela failed because of the ANC leader’s “impeccable integrity”, Erasmus said.
________________________________________
© South African Press Association, 1997
Tobe honest, I see i,don’t know the truth of it all but what I,do,know is,those changes done in that book are so,poorly done that it’s obvious it,has been altered….
But thank you for the link, very eye opening……
Why Nelson and Winnie got divorced
May 22 2007 at 03:01pm
George Bizos looks at the Mandelas’ strained relationship in this extract from his new book.
Not long after Nelson’s release he confided that his relationship with Winnie was strained, not only on a personal level but because of her public behaviour.
She contradicted him while they were on a platform in Germany; she repudiated his call that the people of KwaZulu-Natal throw their weapons into the sea.
He called for reconciliation but she advocated the continuation of the armed struggle. She refused to co-operate with or even acknowledge the ANC leadership. These matters weighed heavily on his mind, particularly since he had requested that she head the ANC’s social welfare desk.
Matters were brought to a head before his release when the UDF accused her of abducting five young men from the home of a Methodist minister, Paul Verryn, later a bishop of that church.
She contended that Verryn had sexually molested the youths and that she removed them for their own protection.
This removal had been carried out by the coach and members of a soccer team, the Mandela United Football Club, who had attached themselves to her.
The youths were subsequently kept in an outhouse at the back of her home.
There were allegations that the young men had been assaulted on her property and in her presence – which she denied – and one of the five, 14-year-old Stompie Seipei, was later found murdered.
All of this added to Nelson’s anxiety. Winnie had distanced herself from me when her conflict began with Nelson and the high-powered committee he had asked to help her.
I did not want to participate in a spat between her and the leaders of the UDF.
But when the UDF issued a statement that no democratic lawyer should act for her regarding the allegations of abduction and assault, I felt compelled to contact her. I disagreed with the UDF and I invited her for a consultation.
She chose the middle of the afternoon and arrived overdressed, accompanied by a number of guards. This defiant gesture was for the benefit of members of the Bar in the lobby who would assume she was coming to see me. The reason I called her was partly to let Nelson know that, true to my undertaking at the end of the Rivonia trial, I had not abandoned her.
Also I thought it wrong for some of my friends to declare that anyone was not worthy of being defended by a lawyer of her choice.
After Nelson’s release she would have nothing to do with any of those who had criticised her.
He, ever a loyal and disciplined member of the ANC, was working closely with them. She believed her husband had done enough.
Now he belonged to her and their two children. She expected him to make her enemies his enemies.
Instead, he invited them to meetings, let them keep his diary and organise his security. All this she found intolerable.
Reminding her of an admission to her German biographer that she would listen only to Nelson and George Bizos, I jokingly told her that she should follow the example of Prince Philip and not Evita.
The Duke of Edinburgh always walked at least one step behind the queen. She laughed, and my advice fell on deaf ears.
The media continued to harangue the police and the deputy attorney general to charge her with kidnapping, assault and even the murder of Stompie, of which the coach of her football club had by now been convicted. When she was charged with assault and abduction (she was never charged with Stompie’ s murder), Nelson called me.
Would I lead a team to defend her? Despite the seriously strained relationship between them, he wanted me involved as I had defended her so often in the past.
In addition, because of the friendship between us, the public perception that he was supporting her would be strengthened. He already knew from their children that she wanted me to defend her, but that she was too proud to ask him for help.
I took on the case at once. Two other counsel were appointed to work with me – Durban advocate Pius Langa, a man who had pulled himself up by his own shoestrings to become a successful member of the Bar, and his colleague from Pretoria, Dikgang Moseneke, imprisoned on Robben Island for 12 years when he was a mere 15-year-old schoolboy. They are now chief justice and deputy chief justice respectively.
The matter was heard in the Johannesburg High Court and Nelson attended the trial regularly, accompanied by leading members of the ANC.
He arrived with her every morning, silently followed the proceedings and emerged with her at lunch time, as though they were a loving couple.
He left with her in the afternoons while many hundreds of enthusiastic supporters applauded tumultuously and television cameras from throughout the world filmed his every gesture.
He drew the line at attending our consultations, primarily because these meetings were also attended by the young lawyer, Dali Mpofu, her lover during the latter part of Nelson’s imprisonment and after he was released.
He had never expected Winnie to be celibate while he was in prison, only that she be discreet.
He couldn’t accept that the relationship continued so openly after his release.
Later, from the witness box in the divorce proceedings, he described this as the loneliest period of his life.
Three of the young men who had been abducted by the Mandela Football Club had given evidence against the coach, Jerry Richardson.
My colleagues had gone carefully through the record and prepared notes for me to use in cross-examining the three youths.
We wanted to establish whether the record showed any contradictions, improbabilities and behaviour inconsistent with their allegations of being assaulted in Mrs Mandela’s presence and held at her house against their will.
They said that it was a common practice for the priest to sleep in the same bed with young men, and that it had happened before with one of the witnesses.
He said Verryn had “prickled” his lower back, which he found offensive and his complaints had reached Mrs Mandela.
This prompted her co-accused, Verryn’s housekeeper Xoliswa Falati, to remove them with the help of the football club to the Mandela house in Winnie’s absence.
The witnesses fared so badly that the judge found he could not believe they were assaulted in Winnie’s presence.
However, he found her an accessory after the fact of the assault – an outcome which the Court of Appeal set aside.
We led irrefutable evidence that she was in Brandfort when the assaults were carried out, and the trial judge could not reject this alibi.
But she knew they were being held at her Soweto house against their will and thus was guilty of kidnapping. The Court of Appeal let this conviction stand, but qualified their findings in her favour.
The trial judge did not accept that she believed the youths were being molested.
The appeal judges said there was evidence that had led her to the apprehension that they were in danger.
Vital to this finding on appeal was that Winnie had approached Frank Chikane, secretary of the South African Council of Churches, some months before the event. Chikane, in turn, spoke to Verryn’s bishop, Peter Storey, about the situation.
The judges were persuaded that this chain of complaints indicated that Winnie had taken the allegations seriously, and had acted on them. In the light of this finding, the appeal judges set aside the six-year jail term. Instead she was given a fine and a suspended sentence.
In my view the media were hardly fair to Winnie Mandela in their coverage of the trial and the appeal.
Their headlines spoke of “The Stompie trial” and did not clarify that she faced no charges in connection with his death. In addition, they raised other allegations, details of which were published without regard for the sub judice rule.
The gay community and some editors accused us of mounting a homophobic defence.
I believe our defence was justified by the finding of Chief Justice Michael Corbett and his four Appeal Court colleagues.
And suppose Verryn had shared a bed with young women who had sought refuge in his house, what accusation would then have been made against us?
Later, Mrs Madikizela Mandela (as she was now known) appeared at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission before Archbishop Tutu.
The accumulated allegations against her were discussed – allegations she categorically denied. This was not a judicial process. She could be neither convicted nor exculpated.
The opportunities for cross-examination, calling witnesses, producing documents and arguing for and against were limited. The evidence of the three witnesses who gave evidence against Richardson at his trial was clear and unambiguous: Richardson and another inflicted serious injuries on Stompie at a time that Winnie was not in Soweto but in Brandfort. Belated attempts by Richardson and Falati to implicate her were too self-serving to be given credence.
Some speculated that I refused to appear for her before the commission. The truth is that I was not asked to do so.
Odyssey to Freedom by George Bizos, published by Random House, goes on sale May 23, 2007
I have only just read this article but I would like to tell you what I know about Katiza. Some years ago I worked in Birmingham. One lunch time I walked out of my office and a young black lad came up to me in New Street and asked if I could tell him where the library was. I said as I was going to the library I would walk there with him. We obviously got talking and I asked him where he was from and he told me South Africa. I replied what a coincidence I have just got back from a holiday there myself. We got talking and somehow got to the subject of football. I said I supported a team and he replied that he used to be in a football team. I inquired which one and he told me Winnie Mandela’s. As you can imagine I was quite shocked. We talked a little about it as we carried on to the library. I asked him why he was going to the library he said he had written a book he wanted to send to the publishers and he had been told he could get the pages bound at the library. When we got to the library they said the do not do binding but told him somewhere in Birmingham that did. So off we went I asked Katiza to join me for a coffee and tell me his story. He told me about how he became a member of the football team and what happened after he saw Stompie being killed, how he had been sent out of SA and how he ended up in England. He told me about his book penned by Fred Bridgland but said he had received very little of the money promised him. He had decided to write another book himself. As he carried a brief case he showed me some of his writing but the grammar was very poor and stood no chance of being published. He also said he had been sent a letter from Desmond Tutu warning him that he would be killed if he returned to SA. He showed me this letter. I asked if we could meet again but he said he was in trouble as he had got drunk one night and had a fight with his neighbor. He had to appear in court and was frightened they would send him back to SA. When I emailed him later he replied saying he was being sent back. I found Katiza a very pleasant and interesting young man. After our meeting I bought a copy of his book Katiza’s Journey, everything he had told me was in the book.
Leave A Reply