Evita, the bobotie and Winnie

2003-02-20 22:01

Willem Jordaan

Cape Town - Evita Bezuidenhout has offered to accompany Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, chairperson of the African National Congress's women's league, to Iraq.

Bezuidenhout, the alter ego of actor Pieter-Dirk Uys, made the announcement after Madikizela-Mandela said she wanted to go to Baghdad to form part of the human shield against possible attacks on Iraq.

Madikizela-Mandela invited other women to join her in Baghdad to oppose the aggression of the United States.

"Winnie is the Mother of the Nation and I am the 'Goggo of the Volk (Granny of the Nation)," Bezuidenhout said.

Bezuidenhout said she planned to make her famous bobotie at a desert summit between president George W Bush of America and president Sadam Hussein of Iraq.

"Bobotie brought the ANC and the New National Party together - who can be worse than them?" Bezuidenhout wanted to know.

The much-loved Evita released her statement from the Eastern Cape where she was teaching pupils about the "real weapon of mass destruction - HIV/Aids".

"Maybe Winnie, president Thabo Mbeki and Aziz Pahad (deputy minister of foreign affairs) should pay more attention to this. Iraq is far away. The Eastern Cape is in our back yard."

'You also have blood on your hands'

Meanwhile, Madikizela-Mandela has come under fire from the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) because of her statement that she found it difficult to sit in the national assembly with apartheid politicians whom she claimed had the blood of black children on their hands.

Hugo Gotze, ACDP councillor for Stellenbosch, said Madikizela-Mandela apparently forgot about the blood on her own hands, caused by her incitement policy of bundu (cangaroo) courts, matches and tyres before the transformation to an ANC government.

- Die Burger