She was detained for the first time on 12 May 1969, held in a prison cell in a Pretoria women’s jail for nine months without being charged.
In a 2013 interview with DRUM, the struggle veteran opened up about her time in prison and her thoughts about her oppressors.
“When we were detained we were not allowed to communicate with our families. Our defence lawyers were the only visitors we had and they told us that the cells where we met with them were bugged.
“David Soggot, an advocate who was working with George Bizos, my lawyer at the time, warned me not to say anything incriminating and urged me to start writing down everything that happened during my imprisonment.
“He would give me paper and a pen, and during the time that he consulted with the other prisoners, I wrote,” she said.
“I wrote about the abuse, the torture, the conditions we faced and how we were treated. I was only able to write for the duration of the consultation and I handed him these pieces of paper when he left. If they had been found on me, I shudder to think what they would have done to me.”
Breaking: Mama Winnie Madikizela-Mandela has died
David Soggot and his wife, Greta, fled the country immediately after the 22 prisoners who were detained with Winnie were re-arrested. They were afraid for their lives. As Mama Winnie explains, “David and the other attorneys faced grave danger by representing us. They really took risks in smuggling out those papers. So many had perished in the liberation war, they were killed just for associating with me.”
Soggot took her papers with him to England, and on his deathbed some years later he begged his wife to make sure they were returned to their rightful owner. Mama Winnie is visibly shaken when she describes the moment when she received the manuscript comprising the documents which Greta Soggot brought back.
“When I received the manuscript, I could not read it,” she says in a sombre tone. “The pain was so overwhelming. It hit me so hard, the memory of that pain. It’s a raw wound.”
Emotional catharsis
Her book 491 Days: Prisoner Number 1323/69 provides an insight into the level of degradation that Mama Winnie and many of the detainees suffered under the apartheid government. It is a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the mind of one of South Africa’s most controversial characters.
“Writing was an emotional catharsis,” she says with a grimace. “It was the only way to release what was happening within. It was a way of trying to understand what was happening inside me. To try and explain a hurt that could not be explained.”
When she talks about the arrest her voice is matter of fact, but the undertone of deep sadness is palpable.
“When I was arrested, I had my two little girls Zindzi and Zenani with me and they clung onto my clothes, wailing, ‘Mommy, please don’t go’,” she recalls.
“The last time I saw them in that 16-month period was when they were ripped away from me. It was the cruellest thing the security branch could have done.” Though she says she has dealt with the pain of being away from her children for so long, Mam’ Winnie is racked with guilt about the fact that they were deprived of a normal childhood.
“They accepted that I chose the country before them,” she says. “Still, I can’t stop feeling the guilt. They never said how much it hurt them and I haven’t asked.”
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