SOUTH AFRICA

In Scott Kraft’s article “Blood Feud” (June 2), he neglects to inform readers that the KwaZulu government that Gatsha Buthelezi heads was created by the apartheid regime as part of its failed “Bantustan” system. Buthelezi used a patronage system to build Inkatha, and the apartheid government abetted his efforts. Kraft describes the police as being “fond of Inkatha, which opposed violence against the state.” What they realize and he doesn’t is that Inkatha is an instrument of the state, run by one of its paid officers. This is why it has recently been attracting some white members.

Inkatha is no mere “tribal” movement defending traditional values. Kraft’s inability or unwillingness to pose the tough questions for Buthelezi turned the story into a puff piece and the chronology of Natal violence into an absolution of the government of South Africa for its role. I am fed up with press coverage that reduces the current strife to some vestigial African proclivity toward violence.

NTATHU MBATHA

Orange Scott Kraft replies: I did not say Inkatha was a tribal movement defending traditional values and I did not blame the fighting on what Mr. Mbatha calls an “African proclivity toward violence.” Far from it. As my article points out, the causes of the war are many and complex. Local power plays and revenge drive the fighting on the ground . Overlaying that is the feud between Inkatha and the ANC, the government’s undisguised favoritism for Inkatha, the lack of discipline among ANC supporters and the poverty imposed by the apartheid system .

Mbatha’s argument that Buthelezi is nothing more than a government puppet ignores a new reality . As ANC leader Nelson Mandela said recently, Buthelezi is “a figure with a following.” Buthelezi’s designs on power are an independent--and some would say dangerous--force that neither the ANC nor the government can control or afford to ignore.