7 S. African Black Youths Slain in Political Feud

Seven black youths were found murdered near Durban on Tuesday in an apparent upsurge of a bitter feud between rival political groups there.

The bodies of the youths, aged 15 to 17, were found in a roadside ditch in Kwamashu, a black township outside Durban, according to police. They had been stabbed to death or shot after being abducted in a clash between rival groups Monday.

“It looks like a mass execution,” said a spokesman for the government’s Bureau for Information.

Most of the youths belonged to the Kwamashu Youth League, an affiliate of the United Democratic Front coalition of anti-apartheid groups, which has fought repeatedly in recent weeks with Inkatha, the moderate, predominantly Zulu political movement.

The incident follows the murder of 12 blacks, seven of them children, at Kwamakhutha, near Amanzimtoti, south of Durban, in what residents there took to be an Inkatha reprisal attack on another local youth group affiliated with the United Democratic Front.

“Inkatha is declaring open war on us, and we are bound to fight back,” a regional official of the United Democratic Front commented Tuesday in Durban. “We can’t accept such brutal intimidation.”

Cycle of Attacks, Revenge

While police said they have not yet established a motive for the Kwamashu killings--among the most brutal reported in nearly three years of political violence here--local residents blamed them on Inkatha, noting that each side had accused the other of carrying out recent murders, kidnapings and assaults in an escalating cycle of attacks and revenge.

Uniformed members of the Inkatha Youth Brigade, armed with guns, machetes and clubs, had broken up a weekend funeral of a youth league member killed two weeks ago when his house was burned down, according to local residents. On Monday, the Kwamashu Youth League sought out Inkatha supporters and reportedly stoned one to death in a schoolyard.

This, in turn, brought Inkatha retaliation Monday evening, according to Kwamashu residents. About 20 youths, some as young as 12 years old, were abducted from Kwamashu by groups of armed men from Lindelani, a nearby settlement and Inkatha stronghold. Those whose bodies were not found in the ditch are still missing.

Rivals for Leadership

The root of the conflict lies in Inkatha’s rivalry with the African National Congress for leadership of the struggle against apartheid, South Africa’s system of racial separation and white minority rule.

Inkatha’s leader, Zulu Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi, objects to the ANC’s use of violence and its alliance with the South African Communist Party; the ANC accuses Buthelezi of collaborating with the white-led government and attempting to usurp what it sees as its role as the premier anti-apartheid group.

Dozens have been killed on both sides over the past year and a half, and the fighting around the Indian Ocean port city of Durban now constitutes much of the country’s continuing political violence.

Riot police and army units have been put on a standby alert, and a senior police commander was sent to the area, the Bureau for Information said Tuesday night. But no further incidents were reported, although Kwamashu and other nearby black townships remained tense.

Chief Buthelezi said earlier this month that Inkatha members were being attacked by the supporters of the United Democratic Front and the African National Congress and warned that they would respond.

In a meeting with Adriaan Vlok, the minister of law and order, Buthelezi asked the government to “untie my hands” so that he could help his followers defend themselves. He asked Vlok to hand over control of police stations in troubled areas of Kwazulu, the Zulu tribal homeland that he heads, to his police and to authorize him to issue firearm licenses.

Inkatha supporters face “arson and murder” from their rivals, Buthelezi said, but are expected to “combat the threat to our lives, limbs and property with our bare hands.”