Inkatha violence increasing in KwaZulu/Natal

By Norm Dixon As South Africa prepares for local government elections on November 1, there has been a sharp increase in political killings in KwaZulu/Natal. The violence has reached such proportions that local elections in the province have been postponed until March. At least 1200 people have been killed and 5000 made homeless since the South Africa's 1994 election. There are an estimated 500,000 internal refugees in the province. Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) leader, and former apartheid collaborator, Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi, has not given up his goal of total political control of the region and the upsurge in violence has been attributed this ambition. Prior to last year's elections, violence spearheaded by IFP goons, backed by sections of the apartheid regime's security forces, spiralled out of control in KwaZulu/Natal and then the Johannesburg region. Buthelezi entered the elections at the last moment after concessions giving significant powers to the provinces and a promise by the ANC that the IFP's outstanding differences over the constitution would be settled later by a panel of international mediators. In the vain hope that it would avert further political bloodshed, the ANC top leadership — over the objections of the local ANC — accepted the IFP's claim to a majority in the KwaZulu/Natal province despite clear evidence of massive irregularities and intimidation of voters. Buthelezi, currently a cabinet minister in the ANC-led Government of National Unity (GNU), has demanded that he be allowed to establish an autonomous Zulu Kingdom. The provincial government created a 77-member upper house, the House of Traditional Rulers, which promptly elected Buthelezi to chair its executive. The IFP wants the readoption of the laws that held sway in old apartheid-era KwaZulu "homeland". Absolute control of KwaZulu/Natal by the IFP is only possible in the long term if it can entrench a thoroughly undemocratic, traditional political system in the province without interference from Pretoria. The IFP dominates the rural areas of KwaZulu/Natal — home to 40% of the province's population — through a combination of the power and patronage of 300 or so amakhosi (traditional Zulu chiefs), and intimidation. The amakhosi and Buthelezi have regularly mobilised their conservative, traditionalist supporters — often in extreme acts of violence — in its campaign for autonomy. There is no possibility of free political activity in these rural areas. Only the foolhardy would admit to supporting the ANC. While the ANC has massive support among Zulus in urban and working class areas, in squatter camps and settlements where newly arrived rural people gather near the cities looking for work, there is a constant struggle for political control. Inkatha uses these isolated and conservative people as pawns in their campaign to destroy the ANC's base of support. Every weekend, the townships and squatter camps that fringe the cities are turned into war zones. In April, the IFP withdrew from the Constituent Assembly, the elected body negotiating South Africa's permanent constitution. Buthelezi refuses to be bound by its decisions and insists that the ANC instead follow through on its promise of international mediation. Buthelezi and the IFP have also been openly hostile to the holding of democratic local government elections in the province. ANC victories in the heavily populated municipalities of the vital industrial corridor between Pietermaritzberg and Durban would undermine Inkatha control and support. Much of the central government's plans for housing, electricity, water and social services will be implemented by the councils. Once they are in place, the GNU can by-pass the provincial government. At the moment, millions of rands in Reconstruction and Development Program funds are lying idle due the incompetence and hostility of KwaZulu/Natal's Inkatha administrators and the widespread violence. Genuinely democratic local government will undermine the political control of the amakhosi. The IFP is pushing for KwaZulu/Natal to adopt its own constitution entrenching undemocratic traditional structures before the first draft of the national constitution. This requires a majority of two-thirds, something the IFP has not been able to achieve. Its dictatorial approach has driven smaller parties to block with the ANC to oppose the idea. Buthelezi has threatened an early provincial election if the constitution is not passed. The ANC has been sharply criticised for its slowness in challenging Buthelezi's destabilisation but this appears to have begun to change. Parliament in Cape Town has moved to end the amakhosi's financial dependence on the KwaZulu/Natal authorities by making their payment the responsibility of the central government. The ANC claims it has the support of 100 amakhosi and denies it is committed to abolishing the system of tribal chieftaincies, saying it only wants to "modernise" them. The GNU has also finally begun to move against Inkatha warlords and others implicated in political violence and hit squad activities. Permits for 3000 rifles issued to the amakhosi and IFP supporters by the KwaZulu government have been withdrawn and a number of high ranking Buthelezi associates have recently been arrested by a hand-picked squad of "untouchables". In addition, Pretoria's safety and security minister Sydney Mufamadi has announced investigations into persistent allegations of hit squads being run within the KwaZulu bantustan police force. KwaZulu/Natal Premier Frank Mdlalose has refused to cooperate. In previous investigations provincial security minister, Celani Mthethwa, has been accused of receiving arms from the apartheid secret police. A Johannesburg newspaper revealed recently that Mthethwa received weekly payments from the apartheid regime's police and was involved in gun-running between state security forces and the IFP. The acting commissioner of the KwaZulu Police (KZP), Sipho Mathe, is also in the "untouchables" sights. A report to the Transitional Executive Council on hit-squads recommended Mathe's "immediate suspension" for assisting several hit-squad suspects. The KZP's security wing, the Bureau of Security and Intelligence, was found to have absorbed some of the 200 IFP supporters trained by the South African Defence Force in Namibia in 1987 to assassinate liberation movement fighters.