Mandela Letter to Zulu Chief Appeals for Peace

Black nationalist leader Nelson R. Mandela, in a rare letter from prison to the conservative black leader Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi, has for the first time appealed for peace in a bloody conflict between the two men’s supporters that has claimed more than 1,000 lives in Natal province over the past two years.

“I consider it a serious indictment against all of us that we are still unable to combine forces to stop the slaughter of so many innocent lives,” Mandela wrote the Zulu chief in a letter that Buthelezi released Friday.

“My fervent hope is to see, in due course, the restoration of the cordial relations which existed between you and O.R. (Oliver R. Tambo, president of the African National Congress), and between (our) two organizations in the seventies,” Mandela wrote.

“The most challenging task facing the leadership today is that of national unity,” he added. “At no other time in our history has it become so crucial for our people to speak with one voice, and to pool their efforts.”

The letter provided a rare glimpse of the current thinking of the 70-year-old leader of the exiled ANC, the principal guerrilla group fighting Pretoria, who has been serving a life sentence since 1964 for sabotage. In recent years, Mandela has only rarely issued public statements, usually through his children or his attorney. While he is allowed to write letters from his house at Victor Verster Prison near Cape Town, most of his correspondence is kept confidential.

Mandela maintains an almost mythical position in the anti-apartheid movement. As a founder of the ANC’s guerrilla campaign, and the eloquent defender of the armed struggle in court more than a quarter century ago, Mandela is considered by millions of black South Africans as their true leader.

Even Buthelezi, who split with the ANC 30 years ago and is criticized by many ANC supporters as being too close to the white minority-ruled government, has refused to hold talks with the government about South Africa’s future until it releases Mandela unconditionally.

Buthelezi, head of the 2-million-member Zulu nation, opposes apartheid and is viewed by the government as a strong and dangerous opponent. But Buthelezi also is considered a sellout by more radical anti-apartheid activists, of whom Mandela is the leader, for accepting the official status granted him by the government as head of the homeland of Kwazulu.

Buthelezi’s Inkatha movement is in a power struggle with supporters of the United Democratic Front, the large anti-apartheid coalition that has been banned from political activity. The UDF has close links with the ANC.

Both Inkatha and the UDF oppose apartheid, but they disagree about how to end it. Inkatha favors working within the political system, while many members of the UDF favor scrapping the system in favor of black-majority rule.

The ideological differences have all but disappeared in Natal, however, where the daily violence--an average of two people die every day in township violence there--has become part of a cycle of revenge. Hundreds of civilians have been killed; tens of thousands have fled into the countryside.

“In my entire political career, few things have distressed me as to see our people killing one another as is now happening,” Mandela wrote. “The entire fabric of community life in some of the affected areas has been seriously disrupted, leaving behind a legacy of hatred and bitterness which may haunt us for years to come.”