South Africa: Back on The Stand

When he first took the stand last month, Kenneth Kgase, 31, refused to testify out of fear for his life. Last week, after pondering the possibility of being jailed for his silence, Kgase decided to talk. And what he had to say in Johannesburg's Rand Supreme Court against Winnie Mandela, the wife of African National Congress (A.N.C.) leader Nelson Mandela, resounded like a clap of thunder. Yes, said Kgase, Mandela and her bodyguards were guilty as charged: they savagely beat him and three other young black men in her Soweto home in December 1988.

Prosecutors accuse Mandela and her guards of having abducted Kgase and the three others from a Methodist shelter and of then trying to pummel them into saying they had had sex with a white minister. Mandela says the youths were taken to her home only to protect them from the clergyman. The minister has been cleared by his church.

The courtroom fell silent as Kgase painted a devastating portrait of Mandela. He accused her of berating the four victims as "not fit to be alive" and then repeatedly punching them, despite their denials of homosexual conduct. "She asked me why do I make friends with white people?" said Kgase. At one point, he said, she struck him with a whip, "humming a tune and dancing to the rhythm." Kgase testified that some of the worst beatings were reserved for James Moeketsi ("Stompie") Seipei, 14, whom Mrs. Mandela accused of being a police informant. The youth was later found dead. Jerry Richardson, head of Mrs. Mandela's bodyguards, has been convicted of the murder.

Although the A.N.C. has condemned the prosecution as "persecution," it helped draft a more cautious statement that said backers did not support Mandela "because she is involved in the present trial; we support her in spite of that fact."

The A.N.C. has been stung by speculation that it was responsible for the muzzling of Kgase last month, as well as the silencing of a second witness and the disappearance of a third. Some A.N.C. insiders fear that if the organization does not dispel that impression, its image will be tarnished.