WORLD : Mandela, Buthelezi to Meet for Peace Talks on ‘Zulu Wars’
South Africa’s most powerful black leaders, Nelson R. Mandela and Mangosuthu Buthelezi, agreed today to meet for peace talks after at least 26 people died and 75 were wounded in two days of battles between rival anti-apartheid groups.
They called an unprecedented meeting for next Monday, signaling a breakthrough in efforts to end South Africa’s “Zulu Wars,” which have cost more than 2,000 lives since 1987 in Natal province, the traditional home of South Africa’s biggest tribe.
The two will seek to end bitter feuding between Buthelezi’s Inkatha movement and groups allied with Mandela’s African National Congress, the main organization fighting apartheid.
The meeting was announced by Buthelezi in a speech to the parliament of his KwaZulu tribal homeland adjoining Natal. It was confirmed by a source close to Mandela.
“Surely we have reached the stage where the elimination of violence can and must be put above party political vested interests,” Buthelezi said in the homeland capital Ulundi.
It will be the first known meeting between the two men since Mandela was jailed 27 years ago for trying to overthrow white minority rule. He was freed last month.
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