Chief Gatsha Buthelezi : Amid the Violence of South Africa, the Zulu Chief Jockeys for Power

When the African National Congress recently demanded the government stop township violence, it described the Inkatha Freedom Party as a “minor player” in South African politics.

Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi, president of Inkatha, was incensed. “I now ask, how can I deal with the ANC in the light of their utterances?” he asked in a statement quickly pumped out by his prolific publicity department.

That night, ANC Deputy President Nelson Mandela telephoned Buthelezi. “Why do you make yourself a spokesman for (President Frederik W.) de Klerk?” Mandela asked. “What do you mean?”’ Buthelezi retorted. “Inkatha was attacked. I had to respond.”

Buthelezi recently recalled, “He said I just should have kept quiet. I couldn’t believe my ears.” As all South Africans know, one thing the Zulu chief does not ever do is keep quiet in the face of criticism. No slight is too small to prompt a larger, acidly worded counterattack from Buthelezi.

The Zulu chief has become a major figure in the fortunes of South Africa, wracked by five years of fighting between supporters of his Zulu-based Inkatha Freedom Party and the ANC. The ANC-Inkatha feud has claimed more than 4,000 lives in Buthelezi’s home base of Natal Province.

Inkatha’s decision last July to expand into Johannesburg-area townships touched off another blood bath. About 1,500 people have died in that conflict, including nearly 150 in the past 10 days. On Thursday, De Klerk banned “dangerous weapons” in public, but excluded spears, a cultural weapon.

Buthelezi, a youthful-looking 62, oversees his kingdom from the legislative building of the KwaZulu self-governing homeland in Ulundi, near the battlefield where British colonialists routed the Zulus in the final battle of the Anglo-Zulu War, 112 years ago. He works in a windowless conference room, surrounded by photos of the heads of state he’s met on his travels. Access to his inner sanctum is guarded by three security checkpoints and one-way mirrors.

Buthelezi is the son of a Zulu chief and the 10th of his 20 wives. His mother was the descendant of a heralded line of warriors, including the founder of the Zulu nation, King Shaka. Buthelezi was the first Zulu chief to graduate from college and, early on, he showed signs of political acumen, from his journeys on horseback into distant rural villages to his remarkable memory for names. The father of seven children by Princess Irene, Buthelezi is a complex man, living behind many faces. Brooding and impatient one minute, he is charming the next.

Question: Fighting between supporters of Inkatha and the African National Congress poses a serious threat to South Africa’s future. The government blames the violence on the ANC, and the ANC blames the government. Who do you think is responsible?

Answer: The documentation is there. The (verbal ANC) attacks on me over decades (are) . . . documented. There is nothing mysterious about that. And there is nothing mysterious about the ANC wanting to make the country ungovernable (during the mid-1980s).

Having said that, I have repeatedly said that members of the Inkatha Freedom Party have been sucked, as well, into the violence. There has been violence and counterviolence, there has been feud violence, there’s been preemptive violence and so on. And the thing has escalated . . . . The violence has become a thing in which all are involved, the ANC and the IFP.

But . . . there has never been one occasion where the Inkatha Freedom Party’s . . . Central Committee has planned and plotted that anybody should be killed. (When) our members have been involved in violence, they did it without any orchestration from my level.

Is the ANC responsible? It’s not a question I can answer myself . . . .

Q: You and Nelson Mandela have spoken several times since you signed the peace accord on Jan. 29. When was the last time he phoned and what was discussed?

A: The last time was a phone call that worried me very much. It was the (April) 13th, after 11 p.m. and he seemed agitated. He said he had heard the people in the (Soweto) hostels were going to attack the residents . . . . And he said, “You must do something, because after these meetings there is always violence.”

I said, “The violence does not come from us.” . . . He said, “I wasn’t blaming the IFP!” It was the first time ever since I’ve known him, for 30 years or more, that he’d ever spoken in anger to me. I was quite surprised.

Q: In the Johannesburg-area townships, where hundreds have died, it’s clear that Inkatha supporters, wearing red headbands, are heavily armed and involved in the violence.

A: Quite so, but they don’t initiate it. It’s the press (who say they do) . . . . The Inkatha Freedom Party holds peaceful rallies and when our people are returning, they are prevented from returning. And everything has followed from that.

When they react, I wish they wouldn’t. But if I’m not there, I don’t think it’s for me to say how they should react, when they are under threat of death . . . . You can rationally talk about it, but unless one is involved in that situation--where it is your life or the next man’s life--there’s no use theorizing about it.

Q: Inkatha is now opening offices and holding rallies in Daveyton, Alexandra, Katlehong, Soweto and other places where Inkatha has never had a presence before.

A: My attitude would be we have every right to do that. Even when Dr. Mandela phoned me, I said, “Surely you don’t mean there can’t be meetings of any party?”

Q: Has the ANC-Inkatha peace accord now fallen apart?

A: It’s a strange thing. We in the Inkatha Freedom Party have had various peace meetings to explain the accord. I’ve never heard of one that they (the ANC) have had.

Q: Then is the accord still alive?

A: In fact, the peace accord hasn’t gotten off the ground. We have never addressed joint rallies, as was promised in the accord. To say it has failed, I don’t know. I think my brother Mandela would even say that he has not been able to do his best, with all the interferences.

Q: The ANC believes the government has the means to stop the violence. Do you agree?

A: It takes two to tango. I think that it (the violence) should shame us. We are ashamed of it, and I think the government, without our cooperation, can do nothing. If we want to fight, as seems apparent, what can the government do?

When the government tries to tighten up, then the ANC complains again and says, it (the government) is oppressive. If I were the government, I wouldn’t know what I was supposed to do.

Of course, it is easier because it is a white government that has oppressed us. It’s easy to blame it, to say it is in their interests if we slaughter each other as black people. One can understand or even have sympathy for that view.

But at the same time, if you look at Angola or Mozambique, there’s no white government there. But hundreds of thousands of people have been killed there. Once conflicts of that kind start, they gain their own momentum . . . .

Q: Does this conflict have its own momentum as well?

A: Yes, there are people from Inkatha and ANC who do things which are not orchestrated by either Inkatha or ANC. And, of course, there is criminal violence too, which I think has been unfairly masked by the ANC-IFP conflict.

Q: Some speak of a cultural or ethnic basis for the fighting, which has pitted Zulus against Xhosas and other non-Zulu groups in townships around Johannesburg. What do you think?

A: There’s no basis for that . . . . There is no history, really, of animosity between Xhosas and Zulus.

The whites will always say that, but it isn’t true. We never fought any war. The present president of the Transkei is married to my first cousin. His children are actually my nephews. Even as late as last year, one of the Zulu king’s sisters married a paramount chief of Xhosas.

Q: Is there any ethnic basis for the fighting then?

A: The only reason the violence became ethnic was that . . . . (ANC supporters) began (verbally) attacking Zulus as Zulus. They said KwaZulu was a creation of the government’s homelands policy. But we Zulus were an independent nation long before apartheid.

The ANC had no problem with (Xhosas in) Transkei, whereas Zulus were considered scum. That is how the ethnic thing reared its ugly head.

But it is true that the Zulu people were welded through fights. It is true there have been faction fights throughout our history.

Q: So Zulus are good fighters?

A: Of course. Everyone knows that. It is a fact.

Q: Is that why the fighting in Natal, between Zulus, has been so bloody?

A: It’s a disadvantage, but it is true.

Q: Obviously, you are very influential among Inkatha supporters. How did you feel when the peace accord was not heeded?

A: I was very, very sad. Very frustrated, too. I still talk about peace to them, but they say, “These people are killing us.” What do I say when people are killed?

Q: Well, what do you say to them?

A: As a leader, I think I must talk peace, because there’s no way forward for all of us, in terms of our struggle, in terms of our aspirations, there’s no way forward through fighting and bloodshed.

Q: Can you ask your people to turn the other cheek?

A: It’s very difficult. I know I’m under threat myself. Mr. Mandela would say he is under threat, too. But I would say that so far I have not really lost a member of my family. I always say that it is difficult to place yourself in the shoes of our people. They have lost husbands and wives. Children are without fathers. There are refugees.

I don’t know what happens inside a human being when he’s lost a loved one . . . . As a Christian, I would say I suppose that I would like to travel the Lord’s way of forgiveness. But, nevertheless, one must try and put oneself in a position we have not really gone through--losing your loved ones.

Q: It has been nearly 15 months since the ANC was legalized. What is your assessment of the ANC so far?

A: It’s good for all of us that the ANC be strong. But I’m very concerned about the leadership level. I believe conflicts and jockeying for position are the things that are responsible for where we find ourselves now.

Q: Why would you want the ANC to be strong? Don’t you have political ambitions of your own in this country?

A: I wish, for the sake of all of us, that they should be strong. None of us wished them ill. We may compete as politicians, but . . . this country of ours should resolve issues through a multiparty democracy, not through one political party with awesome powers.

Q: Isn’t KwaZulu, the self-governing territory run by you and Inkatha, a single-party operation?

A: I haven’t prevented other parties growing up. We never wanted to be a party. Our priority was to remove the white man’s jackboot from our necks. That was not a normal situation. We believe the only way for all of us in South Africa is through multiparty democracy.

Q: Has Mr. Mandela been effective?

A: I regret only one thing, that he doesn’t seem to appreciate his strength as a martyr for black South Africa and his respect both nationally and internationally. I’m just sad that the man is constrained by all these Lilliputians (in the ANC), and that his great potential is not used for the benefit of the country as a whole.

Q: What role do you see for Inkatha in the new South Africa? Would you work in a government controlled by the ANC?

A: I’ve said so many times. If it’s Mr. De Klerk, I have no problem. If Dr. Mandela, no problem. But, on the other side, they must be prepared to serve under me. I’ve always said so. That’s what democracy is about . . . .

Q: Are the wounds of South Africa too deep to heal?

A: Our country has experienced many cataclysms in the last century . . . . We Zulus fought a bitter war with the British, but . . . we look at it unemotionally today as a situation where brave people fought on both sides. So if those wounds can be healed, I don’t think there are any wounds that cannot be healed.