Mandela-Buthelezi Meeting on S. Africa’s ‘Zulu Wars’ Called Off

Prospects for a speedy end to South Africa’s “Zulu wars” dimmed Friday after nationalist leader Nelson R. Mandela called off a peace parley with his Zulu rival, Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi.

The two black leaders had been scheduled to share a platform next week to try to stop the battles raging in Natal province between allies of Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC) and Buthelezi’s Zulu-based Inkatha movement.

The weeklong conflict in Natal’s townships forced thousands of people to flee and seek sanctuary in schools, hospitals and halls.

After a six-hour meeting at Mandela’s home in Soweto township outside Johannesburg, ANC officials said the meeting with Buthelezi had been postponed on the advice of Natal-based activists.

“The atmosphere is not yet ideal for a joint rally in Natal,” an ANC statement said.

Police put the death toll from fighting in six black townships and surrounding countryside in the Edendale valley outside Natal’s provincial capital of Pietermaritzburg at 37 since Sunday.

Natal’s strife seriously threatens the initiative launched last month by President Frederik W. de Klerk who wants talks with black leaders on writing a new constitution.

De Klerk, alarmed that his proposed program of political reforms may be engulfed by the increasing violence, said the Natal conflict had reached unacceptable levels and his government might be forced to crack down.

Zulu supporters of the leftist United Democratic Front, which is allied to the ANC, South Africa’s biggest black opposition group, have been battling Inkatha for three years.

More than 2,000 people are estimated to have been killed in the feud between the two anti-apartheid factions, who disagree over ways to end Pretoria’s white minority rule.

The simmering unrest has now exploded into a virtual civil war.

Witnesses said large numbers of Zulus, armed with automatic weapons, spears and slashing knives called pangas, attacked each other Friday in the township of Imbali between Edendale and the white city of Pietermaritzburg.