Mediation Effort Collapses in S. Africa : Elections: Zulu chief’s demand to delay voting causes international group to drop mission to defuse conflict in Natal province.

A long-shot effort at international mediation to defuse the fierce pre-election conflict in Natal province collapsed in embarrassment and disarray here Thursday before the high-profile mediators had held their first formal meeting.

Former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, the leader of the seven foreign jurists, academics and diplomats, said the group was reluctantly abandoning its mission because of the apparently non-negotiable demand by Zulu Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi that South Africa’s first all-race elections be postponed.

“Our group was unanimous that at no stage and under no circumstances would we involve ourselves with the question of the election date,” Kissinger said. “That date is for South Africans themselves to decide. . . . We leave it to the politicians.”

Sponsored by a private business group, the mediators arrived two days ago amid a fanfare of publicity as a last-minute attempt to forge a compromise between Buthelezi’s Inkatha Freedom Party, which is boycotting the April 26-28 elections, and the African National Congress, which is expected to sweep the vote and head the first post-apartheid government.

The group flew in from six nations, apparently after being told that the ANC and Inkatha had hammered out an agreement Sunday on “terms of reference,” or the stated guidelines, for mediation.

The visitors hoped to resolve the disputes over Inkatha’s demands for constitutional amendments to provide for greater provincial autonomy and the restoration of the Zulu monarchy after the dismantlement of the apartheid-created Zulu homeland.

But on arriving, they found that the guidelines were still a matter of fierce debate because Inkatha insisted that the election be delayed as well, while the ANC and the government of President Frederik W. de Klerk adamantly refused.

“When we came here, we found that the terms of reference had either been reopened or were not fully agreed as we had believed,” Kissinger said.

So instead of retiring to a game lodge Wednesday to mediate, the group cooled their heels in a Johannesburg hotel. Then Buthelezi appeared to harden his position, insisting that even if the mediation led to agreement on other issues, he wanted the balloting postponed so his party would have time to campaign.

Faced with the impasse that has bedeviled South Africans for months, the foreign mediators quickly threw in the towel.

“The fact that it has failed fills me with sadness,” said Lord Carrington, a former British foreign secretary and a mediator.

Both sides, predictably, blamed the other for scuttling the talks.

“It is quite clear to us that they (Inkatha) were entering into the mediation process with the sole objective that the elections be postponed,” said Cyril Ramaphosa, the ANC’s secretary general.

Inkatha’s negotiator, Ben Ngubane, accused the ANC and the government of negotiating “in very, very bad, bad faith.” He added: “The door has been slammed in our face. The chances of an inclusive negotiated settlement is over. I’m just as concerned as any other South African.”

The debacle--following the public failure of a peace summit last Friday among Mandela, Buthelezi, De Klerk and the Zulu king, Goodwill Zwelithini--gives little reason to expect further compromise in the 12 days before the election.

At least 213 Zulus have died in factional fighting in Natal province--the main battleground of the ANC-Inkatha rivalry--since De Klerk declared a state of emergency there two weeks ago to curb the violence and ensure free campaigning.