| The ANC's stormy Winnie Madikizela-Mandela infuriated the rural women who protested outside the World Congress of Rural Women in Durban this week by telling them "not to behave like the MDC in Zimbabwe".
According to Fatiema Shabodien, a protest leader from the Western Cape NGO Women on Farms, Madikizela-Mandela also told the women that their backers, or "colonial masters", were only interested in embarrassing the South African government and that they were being used.
The former ANC Women's League president arrived with a bevy of body-guards in a black S-Class Mercedes-Benz which moved through the police barricade and drew up beside the 600 women, who were singing and waving placards in protest against their alleged exclusion from the conference.
The bodyguards formed a circle around Madikizela-Mandela and the protest leaders as she tried to read the situation.
"Why are rural women protesting in front of their own conference?" she asked. "They should be in it." She promised to take up the matter with Land Affairs Minister Lulu Xingwana, who was attending the conference.
Shortly afterwards, an unknown delegate, identified as a traditional leader, invited nine provincial leaders from the demonstrators to hold talks with Madikizela-Mandela and Cabinet ministers including Xingwana and Minister of Minerals and Energy Buyelwa Sonjica, inside the conference hall.
But Shabodien said their hopes had been dashed. "It was extremely patronising," she said. "If we took a minister on, we were told to show respect. This is our government, but we were told if we were truly rural women, we would know to respect our elders."
Madikizela-Mandela had dressed down the leaders for allegedly embarrassing the authorities.
"They tried to force us to discredit the rural women's organisations officially represented at the meeting," added Shabodien.
After the encounter, 50 of the protesters were allowed to register for the conference.
Dressed in green, the mainly African women sang socialist songs while waving banners from their 14 different organisations, all linked to the left-wing social movement. In scenes reminiscent of anti-apartheid protests, they chanted amandla ngawethu (power is ours) and ululated when their leaders addressed them.
They cannot have escaped the notice of the 2 000 delegates from across the world.
The protesters had some support from the police. "They are the mothers of the world," said one officer who held a riot-control shield. "The organisers made a balls-up, we now have to patrol them instead of fighting crime."
Shabodien said the organisations had followed all official channels in seeking representation at the conference, including nominating their representatives and registering on-line, to no avail.
"The meeting would have been a great opportunity for different rural women to discuss their different needs, network and build a stronger rural women groups base," said Shabodien. "But, instead, it became a farce, because the government was too scared of us so-called radical voices."
The director general of agriculture, Masiphula Mbongwa, and the director general of land affairs, Glen Thomas, hotly denied that the women had been sidelined.
"The congress has been so popular that it was overbooked due to the importance of discussions that affects rural communities," they said in a statement, adding that they decided to hold a parallel congress to accommodate those who could not fit into the international convention centre.
"Civil society is a part of the Congress of Rural Women," the statement said. "The congress is an international congress that deals with matters pertaining to women across the globe. This means that it is not only concerned with South African issues." | 
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