For Roots of South Africa’s Violence, Look to Buthelezi

In less than three weeks, South African voters will elect their country’s first non-racial government. This election was supposed to usher in a new era of peace, but fears are growing that it will instead spark a civil war. These fears are exaggerated. They derive from misunderstandings of the roots of recent political violence.

The current crisis is limited to a small number of areas where ethnic passions have been deliberately inflamed. Most of South Africa is peaceful. The armed battles and bloody massacres that have recently made headlines are confined to Natal, where the intra-Zulu rivalry between traditionalists allied to Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi and those who support the African National Congress is most intense. It is also in a handful of black townships in the industrial heartland, where large concentrations of Zulu migrant workers live.

The current battles are outgrowths of Buthelezi’s continuing efforts to carve out a political role for himself in a post-apartheid South Africa. It is only where his followers live that there is a serious danger of prolonged unrest. Paradoxically, however, Buthelezi himself may now be a relatively inconsequential factor in the larger equation that will determine how quickly the crisis can be resolved.

Contrary to his critics’ charges, Buthelezi was never just another homeland leader or merely a tool of the apartheid regime. If he had been, he would have already disappeared from the scene, like the other original homeland leaders.

From his student days in the 1940s, when he joined the ANC Youth League, Buthelezi has considered himself an opponent of white rule and looked to the day when he would be among the leaders of a black-ruled South Africa.

Over time, he has changed strategies, but his eye remained on the ultimate prize of power in a post-apartheid South Africa. Unfortunately, his efforts to gain it have created deep divisions.

In 1972, when Buthelezi became chief minister of KwaZulu--the homeland in Natal created for South Africa’s largest tribe, the Zulu--he did so with the implicit blessing of many ANC leaders. At the time, the anti-apartheid movement was on the ropes. Buthelezi argued that control of KwaZulu offered an opportunity to use the system against itself.

Instead of following the lead of other homeland leaders and accepting Pretoria’s offer to grant KwaZulu nominal independence, Buthelezi insisted that his homeland would remain part of South Africa. His refusal ensured that the Afrikaner regime’s plans never gained international approval. They also enhanced Buthelezi’s personal credibility in liberal circles.

In the mid-1970s, the revival of the anti-apartheid movement changed the political equation inside South Africa. A new internal opposition emerged that was bitterly opposed to Buthelezi’s strategy of opposition through collaboration. In response, Buthelezi began to redefine himself as the moderate alternative to ANC radicals. He also created his own political organization, Inkatha.

Throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s, Buthelezi de-emphasized his ethnic base because his “Zuluness” limited his political horizons. He also recognized that many Western interests and white liberals in South Africa were searching for a non-ANC horse to back in the anti-apartheid derby. It was then that the seeds of the current violence were sown.

Fighting in Natal began in the mid-1980s, when the United Democratic Front, an ANC ally, began to organize workers and youth in Zulu areas. Buthelezi fought back--politically and militarily. He quietly turned to Pretoria for assistance. The KwaZulu police soon became an extension of the South African military’s covert war against the anti-apartheid movement. This irreparably tarnished Buthelezi’s anti-apartheid credentials. As his chances to become a national leader declined, he promoted the idea that South Africa should become a federal state--with power concentrated at the regional level.

Initially, Buthelezi’s regionalism made him a natural ally of Afrikaner reformers, who sought to preserve white influence by pushing for a highly decentralized state. But this alliance was short-lived. By the time Frederik W. de Klerk became president, in 1989, it was clear that lasting peace would require an accommodation with Nelson Mandela and the ANC.

The De Klerk government continually used the Buthelezi card throughout its negotiations with the ANC--and elements in the security forces continued to help Inkatha fight its war against the ANC. But Buthelezi no longer figured in the National Party’s long-term plans.

Once agreement was reached on the plan for transitional elections, Buthelezi tried again to play a leading role. He declared that Inkatha would not participate in the elections and encouraged King Goodwill Zwelethini, the traditional leader of the Zulu, to declare their right to establish an independent state.

After all his maneuvers, Buthelezi has lost most of his influence. He no longer commands majority support even among Zulu in Natal--one reason he is reluctant to participate in free elections. Groups he once controlled--the KwaZulu bureaucracy, the Inkatha Freedom Party and the Zulu nation--have become significant forces that will have to be taken into account in the search for a way to end the violence. But Buthelezi is no longer in charge. In fact, it is only to the extent that KwaZulu bureaucrats, Inkatha warlords and the royal family believe he is still useful to them that he has any hope of remaining in the political game.

For all of these reasons, the keys to ending the current crisis are not in Buthelezi’s hands. Negotiating efforts that concentrate on finding ways to meet his demands will fail. Instead, an attempt must be made to calm the Zulu passions that Buthelezi has aroused by reassuring them that a future government will not discriminate against Zulus or deny their king Zwelethini his traditional role.

This will require the enlightened statesmanship that both Mandela and De Klerk have already demonstrated. South Africans and the international community must come to terms with the fact that many Inkatha warlords are unlikely to compromise. Forcing them to accept the reality of a democratic South Africa will be a long, and probably violent, process--but it is not likely to prevent the country from realizing its hopes for a peaceful and prosperous future.