Pretoria Admits Police Aided ANC Rival : South Africa: Funding of two Inkatha rallies raises questions about the government’s willingness to quell black violence.

In an admission likely to severely damage the credibility of its police force, the South African government acknowledged Friday that its security police had secretly funded two rallies of the African National Congress’ rival, the Inkatha Freedom Party, in 1989 and 1990.

The announcement, prompted by news reports revealing the payments, appeared to confirm longstanding assertions by the ANC that police have acted with partiality toward Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi’s Inkatha movement, which has been involved in a bloody dispute with the more powerful ANC.

It followed months of denials by President Frederik W. de Klerk and raised new questions about the government’s willingness to quell township violence between Inkatha and the ANC, which has taken 3,000 lives in the past year. It also cast doubt on the government’s ability to impartially shepherd the negotiations process leading to a new constitution.

Law and Order Minister Adriaan Vlok acknowledged the payments to support the Inkatha rallies in Durban, but he said they were part of a campaign against international economic sanctions and were not intended to support any particular political party. Buthelezi has been a longtime foe of sanctions.

But security police Maj. L. Botha, in an internal memorandum published Friday by the Weekly Mail newspaper, told his superiors in March, 1990, that the money would help Buthelezi’s movement send a message to South Africa and the world that there are “a large number of people who don’t support the ANC. . . .”

The major noted that the ANC was planning several mass rallies at the time, and he requested 120,000 rand (about $43,000) to help Inkatha draw a big crowd “to support the chief minister (Buthelezi) and to show everyone that he does in fact have a strong base.” The major added that, unless the government helped Buthelezi, the Zulu chief might decide to “throw in his lot with the ANC.”

He added that Buthelezi planned at the rally to deliver an anti-violence, anti-sanctions message that would include praise for De Klerk “for his political vision and his actions so far.”

The request apparently was granted, but only about 10,000 people showed up in a driving rain for the March 25, 1990, rally.

A later memo, from police Brig. Gen. J.A. Steyn, said that Buthelezi had been grateful for the assistance and “very emotional” when he saw a copy of the receipt indicating the government contribution, the Weekly Mail reported. “He could not say thank you enough,” Steyn wrote.

Buthelezi, clearly embarrassed by the disclosures on the eve of Inkatha’s national conference in Ulundi, denied knowing about any police payments to Inkatha.

“I can say quite emphatically that I have never spent one cent of government money to undermine the ANC, and I have never known that government money has gone into supporting an Inkatha rally,” Buthelezi said. Such actions “would be wrong and would inevitably lead to the kind of scandal the Weekly Mail is now trying to blow up,” he added.

De Klerk, in a statement from Pretoria, said the policy on covert funds and projects had been revised in mid-1990 after a lengthy review, and numerous covert operations, such as the one involving Inkatha, “were canceled in an orderly fashion.”

“It is not the government’s policy to render direct or indirect financial or other support to any political party or organization,” De Klerk said. He added that some covert actions have continued “in the broad national interest.”