Fanatics and Mercenaries Are the Killers : South Africa: Peace between Inkatha and the ANC may have come too late, because control of the violence has left their hands.

The much-acclaimed peace accord signed last weekend by the African National Congress, the Inkatha Freedom Party and the South African government might have been worth something three years ago.

Then, the so-called black-on-black fighting really was primarily between the ANC and Inkatha and their sympathizers, with some fairly overt interference from security forces, which were trying to maintain the authority of the white regime. Today, however, the major signatories to the accord are no longer responsible for a major portion of the violence.

Within a week of the peace accord signing, 125 people died, primarily in mass shootings. It would have been convenient to call the killings a continuation of yesteryear’s fight between black organizations. But nothing could be further from the truth. It is common knowledge in the black townships that today’s violence has new, sinister and clandestine participants.

The ANC and Inkatha know well that they can’t afford this violence, for it is losing them support. For the same reasons, the Pan Africanist Congress and Azanian Peoples’ Organization are not involved. And President F.W. de Klerk, much as he welcomes the weakening of the ANC, knows that he cannot afford to be part of this sort of mayhem in the aftermath of the scandal involving secret government funding of Inkatha. His senior officers in the security Establishment also want the violence ended, or controlled. That is why several policemen are to stand trial for atrocities in Natal province, including the murders of women and children.

Even the right-wing Conservative Party is an improbable participant in the current violence. CP leader Andries Treurnicht is patiently waiting for the 1994 elections after winning key parliamentary by-elections since De Klerk started his reforms.

So, with all major parties out of the equation, at least at the official level, who is to blame? Last Friday, two whites were sentenced to death for slaying seven people in Natal last October. These were members of the fanatic right-wing Afrikaner Resistance Movement who vented their racial hatreds on innocent blacks.

There are more of such fanatics, all members of Ku Klux Klan-like organizations. Speculation is that a tightly woven network of white right-wing vigilantes, with military backgrounds or connections, operates in small bands. Among them are security personnel from the former colonies, including Rhodesia’s notorious Selous Scouts and the disbanded Koevoet Unit of the South African Defense Force, which was responsible for atrocities against Swapo and its supporters in Namibia.

These bands, it is said, control a ready black army--unemployed, disillusioned youths, askaris (former ANC and PAC guerrillas turned by the police and used to flush out and kill insurgents), renegades from Mozambique, Angola and Namibia. This army spews terror and destruction from behind a shield of masked anonymity.

The right-wingers behind this mercenary army want to sow instability in the black townships. This, they hope, will turn black organizations against the government for not taking sufficient measures to stop the blood bath.

The ease with which this anonymous violence spreads shows the availability of resources and the military precision with which cells of assassins and agents provocateurs are activated throughout the region including Soweto, with the highest black concentration in the country.

Thus, for the ordinary Soweto resident, the peace accord does not hold much hope. True, it creates a sorely needed culture of political tolerance. It will also reduce the violent political rivalry of the past, and it does mark a historic turning on the road to a new South Africa.

But it does not guarantee peace and stability, what is now desperately wanted in our areas. For this to be achieved, the hunt for right-wing terrorists and their acolytes must be stepped up. This is an immediate task for De Klerk, not for other parties to the peace accord.