I found this story amusing. Enjoy! By RAVI NESSMAN .c The Associated Press JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) - There has never been much love between President Thabo Mbeki and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, but at least they were civil. Then came the Great Hat Controversy. The battle of words in the two weeks since has exposed the barely concealed dislike between the man who controls the country and the controversial woman who commands many of its people's affections. The dispute began June 16, when Madikizela-Mandela, the ex-wife of beloved former President Nelson Mandela and an anti-apartheid legend in her own right, arrived late at a soccer stadium for the 25th anniversary commemoration of the Soweto Uprising. The crowd began chanting her name, interrupting a speech. She walked onto the stage where Mbeki was sitting, put her hands on his shoulders and bent down, apparently to give him a kiss on the cheek. Mbeki lifted his left arm to block the kiss and push her away, knocking her black African National Congress cap off in the process. Mbeki, who is also president of the ANC, later said he was annoyed she had interrupted the ceremony and come on the stage despite being directed elsewhere. Madikizela-Mandela, who is president of the ANC Women's League, said she had not even been invited to the stadium, but chose to go so her absence would not be ``misinterpreted.'' She came late because she was trapped behind Mbeki's motorcade and approached him onstage, not for a kiss, but to request a private chat, she said. The ANC accused Madikizela-Mandela of ``behaving badly, flouting protocol and disregarding the solemnness of the occasion.'' She shot back: ``The masses are still with me. I am the ANC.'' Though Madikizela-Mandela helped Mbeki succeed Mandela as president in 1999, their personal styles strongly clashed. ``Winnie has the gift of gab, empathy with the people ... but she's also disreputable and noisy and indiscreet,'' said Tom Lodge, professor of political science at the University of the Witwatersrand. ``Thabo Mbeki is exactly the opposite.'' Mbeki, exiled abroad during apartheid, often appears aloof and more comfortable with business officials and world leaders than poor South Africans. His popularity has fallen sharply since taking office, according to opinion polls. Madikizela-Mandela lived in the heart of the apartheid struggle. She was repeatedly arrested, barred from speaking publicly, shot at in her home and temporarily exiled to a remote township. She remains widely popular among poor urban blacks and has become a mother figure to the country's victims, holding grieving the mother's hand at a child's funeral and meeting with the poor in squatter camps. But neither leader is a stranger to controversy. Madikizela-Mandela has been linked to killings, torture, assaults and arson carried out by her bodyguards in the black township of Soweto in the late 1980s. For his part, Mbeki, known to be hypersensitive to criticism, has been accused of failing to deal with the AIDS crisis and ignoring the needs of the poor. Few appear to have angered Mbeki as often as Madikizela-Mandela. In a scathing speech at a protest outside the international AIDS conference last year, Madikizela-Mandela attacked the government's poor record on fighting the deadly disease that afflicts 11 percent of South Africa's 43 million people. ``We have failed to take HIV/AIDS seriously,'' she told thousands of singing supporters. In January, a letter surfaced from Madikizela-Mandela to Deputy President Jacob Zuma in which she repeated rumors Mbeki was a womanizer, said the president had ``grievously maligned'' her and accused ANC officials of persecuting her. After the controversy, she accused the government of failing the country's poor. The ANC has launched an investigation into Madikizela-Mandela's behavior. Political analyst Sipho Seepe cautioned the party to tread lightly with a woman whose popular support could cause serious problems for Mbeki and other party leaders. ``As controversial as she is, that does not change the fact that she is seen as the people's leader, and I think she will always be a thorn in the flesh of those who see themselves as the new party bosses,'' he said. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask] if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write your full name and e-mail address. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------