Winnie Mandela Dies Aged 81

In 1969‚ Madikizela-Mandela became one of the first detainees under Section 6 of the notorious Terrorism Act of 1967. She was detained for 18 months in solitary confinement in a condemned cell at Pretoria Central Prison before being charged under the Suppression of Communism Act of 1950.

In 1991‚ she was convicted of kidnapping and being an accessory to assault of Stompie Seipei‚ a young activist who was killed by a member of her bodyguards‚ the Mandela United Football Club.

Madikizela-Mandela’s bodyguards had abducted Seipei‚ 14‚ in 1989‚ along with three other youths‚ from the home of Methodist minister Paul Verryn.

Her six-year jail sentence was reduced to a fine and a two-year suspended sentence on appeal.

Her marriage to Mandela began to flounder a few years after his release.

A letter she purportedly wrote to her young lover found its way into the newspapers.

“You’re running around f…ing at the slightest emotional excuse‚” she wrote.

“The fact that I haven’t been speaking to Tata [Nelson Mandela] for five months now over you is no longer your concern. I keep telling you the situation is deteriorating at home. You are not bothered because you are satisfying yourself every night with a woman‚” Madikizela-Mandela reportedly wrote.

In his book Odyssey to Freedom‚ veteran advocate George Bizos described how Mandela would not attend legal consultations Bizos had with Madikizela-Mandela during the Seipei trial.

“He drew the line at attending our consultations‚ primarily because these meetings were also attended by the young lawyer … her lover during the latter part of Nelson’s imprisonment and after he was released‚” Bizos wrote in his book.

The couple divorced in 1996‚ 37 years after their marriage.