S. African Scandal Grows Over Aid to Mandela Foes : Politics: De Klerk government admits giving funds to the Inkatha party, which has long feuded with the ANC.

Two days after Nelson Mandela was freed from jail last year, a security policeman sent a top-secret letter to his superiors, suggesting that they donate $40,000 to help Mandela’s archrival, Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi, stage a rally in Durban.

“The failure of a rally like this would have far-reaching implications,” Maj. Louis Botha warned. “The question must be asked whether we can afford (politically) not to assist such a meeting.”

That covert payment to Buthelezi’s Inkatha Freedom Party in March, 1990, revealed by a newspaper here last week, has cracked open a South African scandal that many are calling “Inkathagate.”

Like its Watergate namesake, the investigation of one small but significant misdeed has led to a series of revelations--by the government itself. They are almost certain to result in the resignation of one or more Cabinet ministers and may reach all the way to President Frederik W. de Klerk.

It already has deeply embarrassed De Klerk’s administration, undermined the credibility of his police force and exposed as a lie the government’s vehement past assertions that it has been an impartial referee in the bloody feud between Mandela’s African National Congress and Buthelezi’s Inkatha movement.

And Inkathagate is likely to have broader, even more serious implications for the country as the government tries to start constitutional negotiations to end white-minority rule.

“President De Klerk’s personal reputation cannot endure much more battering,” the Sunday Times said this week in a rare front-page editorial. “If his historic endeavor to turn this country from the path of destruction is to proceed, he must soon gain control . . . and shut off the immense flow of funds that sustains the gangsterism in his government.”

Even the government-supporting Citizen newspaper--which was the center of a scandal after revelations a decade ago that it was founded by secret government funds--admitted Monday that the Inkatha payments “have cast a shadow over government.”

So far, De Klerk’s government has acknowledged covert payments totaling $90,000 for Inkatha rallies and $535,000 over the last six years in secret assistance to the United Workers Union of South Africa, Inkatha’s union ally.

Law and Order Minister Adriaan Vlok and Foreign Affairs Minister Roelof F. (Pik) Botha admit that they approved the expenditures to Inkatha and the union. However, they contend that the money, part of a multimillion-dollar secret slush fund, was intended to combat international sanctions against Pretoria by supporting organizations, such as Inkatha, that opposed them.

That argument, the daily Business Day said in an editorial Monday, “just won’t wash. The disclosure confirms what has been suspected all along--that government is backing Inkatha in its struggle with the ANC.”

Vlok, asked on state-run television Sunday night if he planned to resign, said he is “reconsidering my position and will discuss it with the state president.” He added that he would resign if his presence in the Cabinet “became an obstacle on the road to negotiations.”

De Klerk and his Cabinet began a scheduled three-day meeting at a secret location Monday, and Inkathagate was high on the agenda.

When the payments for Inkatha rallies were first disclosed, in the anti-apartheid Weekly Mail newspaper on Friday, De Klerk contended that such payments and numerous other activities were ended in mid-1990 after an extensive review of the government’s covert operations.

De Klerk said the few remaining covert actions “are now subject to Cabinet control . . . and are being carefully and firmly managed.” He said it is no longer government policy “to render direct or indirect financial support to any political party or organization.”

But the question being asked in South Africa is how much De Klerk knew about the efforts to prop up opponents of the ANC after he had legalized the organization in February, 1990.

The country’s auditor general, Peter Wronsley, told Radio 702’s Newstalk program in Johannesburg on Monday that by law, De Klerk, Finance Minister Barend du Plessis and the auditor general must know about spending from the secret fund. That fund, under Botha’s foreign affairs department, was allocated $135 million in the budget this year.

Wronsley would not discuss specific expenditures, but he said the fund’s books were in order. He added that it was up to others in the government to decide whether the spending was politically appropriate.

Buthelezi has repeatedly denied any knowledge of the government donations, which he contends were made anonymously, and he has frequently used expletives to make his point. But he has been left out on a limb by the government’s own admissions.

Vlok said that senior Inkatha leaders reported back to the government on how “each and every cent” of the money was spent. And secret police memos obtained by the Weekly Mail indicated that Buthelezi “could not say thank you enough” when police showed him a bank receipt for the $40,000 contribution to his rally last year.

Whether he knew or didn’t know, De Klerk’s reformist reputation already has been damaged by the scandal.

Mandela, speaking to reporters on a visit to Spain, urged foreign governments to reconsider their decisions to lift sanctions. Their repeals have been made largely as a way to reward De Klerk for his reform program. And international moves to remove remaining sanctions against Pretoria are certain to stall until the scandal has passed.

In Washington, the State Department on Monday urged De Klerk to “take action to terminate all activities which undermine the open political system” and to “take appropriate action against all persons found responsible for illegal acts.”

“We believe the integrity of the negotiating process requires nothing less,” said Richard Boucher, the State Department’s deputy spokesman.

The ANC has long contended that a “third force” within the government has been fanning the flames of black factional violence by aiding Inkatha supporters in battles with ANC supporters.

That violence once was confined to Natal province, home base for the predominantly Zulu Inkatha movement. But the trouble spread to Johannesburg-area townships last August, days after Inkatha transformed itself into a political party and launched a recruitment drive outside Natal.

More than 3,000 blacks have died in the factional fighting during the past year, and 1,800 of those deaths have occurred in townships near Johannesburg.

That bloodshed “is being perpetrated by this government in cahoots with the Inkatha Freedom Party,” ANC Deputy President Walter Sisulu said Monday.

But, until last Friday, the ANC’s allegations of police assistance to Inkatha were supported by scanty evidence, consisting mostly of ANC supporters who reported seeing police officers transport armed Inkatha warriors into ANC-controlled areas. Both the government and Buthelezi had vociferously denied all allegations of collusion.

Although no hard evidence has yet been presented that the government has been arming Buthelezi’s supporters, payment to Inkatha suggests to many that the links between the two organizations may go even deeper.

The government’s kinship with Buthelezi and Inkatha, based on similar political beliefs, has long been known. Like the government, Buthelezi strongly opposed international sanctions and the ANC’s guerrilla war, which was suspended last year. He also is chief minister of one of the self-governing homelands, set up by the government a decade ago to divide the country by race and deny blacks South African citizenship.

That homeland, KwaZulu, receives substantial government assistance, but Buthelezi has refused government pressure to accept full independence for his homeland, arguing that it is an important part of South Africa.

At Inkatha’s annual convention over the weekend, the government’s minister of constitutional affairs, Gerrit Viljoen, drew approving cheers by describing the payments to Inkatha as “insignificant” when compared to the funding that the ANC has received from overseas governments and anti-apartheid organizations.

Buthelezi has dismissed suggestions that he resign, and his organization reelected him in a voice vote at its convention on Sunday. Although Buthelezi does not have the majority support of South Africa’s 8 million Zulus, his organization claims 2.2 million mostly Zulu members.

The allegations are unlikely to damage Buthelezi’s standing among those supporters, who view this as an unjustified personal attack on them hatched by the ANC. But the furor may hurt Inkatha’s recruiting efforts among whites and non-Zulu blacks, who have supported the organization primarily as an alternative to the ANC.

An intensely ambitious politician, Buthelezi has sought since the ANC was legalized to position himself as a key player in the country’s future. He fears that an ANC-controlled government will run roughshod over the rights of many whites and blacks, including his supporters.

Buthelezi intends to hold firmly onto power. He told reporters that anyone who thought the future of South Africa could be decided without his participation “should have their heads read.”

BACKGROUND

Law and Order Minister Adriaan Johannes Vlok was born in 1937 in Sutherland, South Africa. He joined the Department of Justice in 1957, and during his career there he served as a prosecutor and magistrate. In 1974, he became a member of Parliament representing Verwoerdburg, outside Pretoria. He was deputy minister of defense in 1984-86 and he has served as minister of law and order since 1986. Aside from rugby, he is also interested in military history.