The Case of Winnie Madikizela- Mandela
- produced by Samantha Chaifetz, Jeremy Rossman and Patrick Keefe
his 43-minute video presentation examines--in three parts--the
special hearings regarding the alleged crimes of Winnie Madikizela-
Mandela and the group of youths associated with her, known as the
Mandela United Football Club (MUFC).
In particular, this presentation focuses on the abduction, torture and
murder of 14-year old activist Stompie Seipei in the late 1980s. In
the early 1990s, Winnie was convicted for her role in Stompie's
abduction, but on appeal her penalty was reduced to a suspended
sentence and a fine. Many questions about Stompie's disappearance and
death remained unanswered.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission's special hearings aimed to
answer these questions--to establish the whole truth behind Stompie's
disappearance and death by giving witnesses, victims, accomplices, and
Winnie herself an opportunity to speak.
But the Stompie Seipei story proved especially challenging from a
truth-seeking point of view. The narrative was complicated by a long
series of accusations and counter-accusations and witnesses who gave
conflicting testimonies.
Moreover, the hearings raised a series of intractable questions. How
did the anti-apartheid movement deal with the fall from
grace of one its foremost icons? Did the central institutions of
the struggle turn a blind eye to the vigilantism of Winnie and the MUFC
for fear of jeopardizing the release of Nelson Mandela from prison
and the political ascendancy of the ANC? More generally, are human
rights abuses by anti-apartheid figures ethically distinct from those
perpetrated by the apartheid government and police? Should they be
treated differently? Did Winnie Madikizela-Mandela leverage her legacy
and power to obtain a kind of impunity? Would an appeal for amnesty have
forced her to be more truthful in her testimony? What role did apology
and repentance play in the special hearing, though they were not
requirements of the process? And how did—or didn’t—“the Winnie
hearings” affect Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s status as a popular hero
in the country at large?
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Biographies
Jeremy Rossman
Jeremy is a member of the class of 2005 at Yale Law School. A relevant selection from his biography might say something like this: He graduated from Duke University in 1998 with a joint degree in Public Policy and Economics. He has been a student of transitional justice since stumbling upon Lawrence Weschler’s brilliant and unsettling study "A Miracle, A Universe: Settling Accounts with Torturers" in a flea market in Lima in 1994. At Duke University he missed his opportunity to study literature under the tutelage of Ariel Dorfman, author of "Death and The Maiden," and continues to regret it. His undergraduate senior project concerned the influence of a nation’s culture and preferred forms of narrative on the structure of its truth commission. Following graduation, he lived and worked in Central America collecting and translating testimonies of former combatants and non-combatants about their experiences during and since the armed struggles of the 1980s. In the fall of 2005, he will join Debevoise & Plimpton as an associate in the corporate practice of its New York office. He will also, no doubt, spend as much of his time as practicable reading and writing.
Samantha Chaifetz
Samantha is a member of the Yale Law School class of 2005. She graduated from Harvard University in 2000 with a degree in Sociology. At Yale, she was co-Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law, and Ethics. Her research and activism focused on issues at the intersection of health and human rights—working as a member of the national board of Universities Allied for Essential Medicines and as President of the Yale AIDS Network. She was also involved with several clinics, including the Allard K. Lowenstein Human Rights Clinic, and served as the teaching assistant for the undergraduate course in international human rights.
Patrick Keefe
Patrick is a member of the Yale Law School class of 2005. In 1990 he visited South Africa with the writer Rose Moss and tagged along while she conducted interviews with Popo Molefe and other leaders of the UDF. He attended Columbia College and holds graduate degrees from Cambridge University and the London School of Economics. His research has focused primarily on the civil liberties/human rights dimension of international security issues. He is a Project Leader at the World Policy Institute and a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books. His first book, "Chatter: Dispatches from the Secret World of Global Eavesdropping," was published in 2005. |