FILE PHOTO: The late Zulu Nation Prime Minister, Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi has been in the public space for the longest time serving under all democratic elected presidents. PICTURE: David Harrison
0 
0 Prince Buthelezi was a heartless mass murderer, whose hands were full of indelible bloodstain, writes SIBUSISO SAMANTUNGWA
In his riveting book, Gatsha Buthelezi: Chief with a Double Agenda, Jabulani Nxumalo described the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) founder Prince Magosuthu Buthelezi, who demised aged 95, as “the most controversial black politician in South Africa.”
“Mzala,” as the author was popularly known, goes further to assert: “There is no easy explanation for the political behaviour of Chief Buthelezi … his leadership role (including within Inkatha) can be fully understood only by an attentive survey of his political past, from the time of his incorporation into the institution of chieftaincy in 1953.”
Therefore, his legacy, which has polarised the nation following his demise, should be traced back to then. Much of the debate on his legacy centres on two key questions, namely on whether he was a collaborator of an inhuman, repressive system against his fellow blacks or not and on whether he was a man of peace or not.
In 1951, an apartheid regime, which came into effect in 1948 when the defunct National Party (NP) re-captured state power for the second time in the 20th century, introduced the Bantu Authorities Act, which cajoled the chiefs into abiding by its provisions or face deposition.
According to Mzala, the Buthelezi clan rejected the system, as did the African National Congress (ANC) and peasants countrywide, but not Gatsha, who is a son of Dinizulu’s daughter, Princess Magogo. For his endorsement of the despotic system, he was undeservedly offered his tribal chieftaincy, as Mcelile was his elder brother.
In fact, as the author points out, Buthelezi became an apartheid collaborator against his own brother in the early 1950s. To that effect, he went on to serve as, among other positions, prime minister of the Zulu nation, a position he held until his last breath.
The South African Student Organisation (SASO) described him and his fellow homeland leaders as puppets. With regard to the former, Steve Biko, a Black Consciousness (BC) founder, put it thus: “[C]ertainly as black as I am in colour, and possibly in aspirations, but (he) operates within a system which is created for him by the White government and in that sense he is an extension of the System.” Dr Ntatho Mohlala, one of his fierce critics, described him as both a collaborator and a traitor.
While collaborating with and operating within the oppressive, inhuman system, Buthelezi projected himself as a man of peace. Addressing Afrikaner students at the University of Stellenbosch in March 1978, for example, he said: “I still stand even at this late hour for a non-violent change … I am a man of peace and I hold my peace even in the face of deep provocation.”
Against this reality, this claim of his had not only endeared him to the domestic capitalist business community and the Western governments but also earned him awards and honorary degrees. “Because he has rejected violence as an instrument to bring about national change,” claimed Gavin Relly, then chairperson of Anglo American Corporation, “he naturally stands in a better light for many than those who do not”.
In 1982, the American Federation of Labor and Council of Industrial Organisations (AFLCIO) awarded the IFP founder George Meany Human Rights Award. The following year, Pandit Satyapal Sharma of India declared him ‘Apostle of Peace’. In 1985, Tampa University conferred him with an honorary degree of Doctor of Law and Boston University followed suit the following year.
These accolades and Buthelezi’s projection of himself as the man of peace should be understood within the context of the ANC’s stance during the liberation struggle. At first, the liberation movement had adopted a non-violent stance against the oppressive, violent and racist regime. This earned its former president, Chief Albert Luthuli, a Nobel Peace Prize.
Incidentally, Luthuli was deposed for not endorsing the Bantu Authorities Act. He was the chief of Amakholwa clan of Groutville.
Over time, the ANC embarked on an armed struggle. This resulted in the Umkhoto weSiwe (‘The Spear of the Nation’), popularly known as the MK, being formed.
In 1975, Buthelezi, who is a former ANC Youth League (ANCYL) member, launched the IFP as the National Cultural Political Movement. Between 1976 and 1979, its membership drastically shot up from 30,000 to 250,000. According to a 1978 survey by the Arnold Bergstrasse Institute, half (50 per cent) of its supporters supported the then-banned ANC.
Violence was meted out against the IFP, formerly known as Inkatha, and its founder’s opponents. To that effect, the late leader was accompanied by Inkatha warriors wherever he went to deliver an address. Towards the end of 1983, students at the University of Zululand learnt that Chief Buthelezi would address a rally at a campus to commemorate the centenary of King Cetshwayo’s death.
Knowing that he would be accompanied by his Inkatha warriors, they implored him and the University management to cancel the rally in vain. Their fear was vindicated, as five students were brutally killed, among whom Fumane Marivate, singled out as one of the troublemakers.
In the 1970s, the IFP used militant ethno-Zulu nationalism as a strategy to project itself as a genuine black liberation movement than the exiled ANC.
Due to its participation in the apartheid structures, the community councils to be precise, the IFP lost a great deal of support in the urban areas. At the final hurdle of the liberation struggle in the 1980s, it used the strategy to fight the ANC for black urban support.
Beginning in September 1984, as a political conflict between the ANC and the IFP intensified, South Africa experienced vigilante violence, commonly referred to as ‘black-on-black violence’. In essence, following the ANC’s clarion call for the country to be rendered “ungovernable and apartheid unworkable,” the state could not maintain law and order in the black townships, as the community councils were replaced with street committees.
Making use of Inkatha vigilantes, the government resorted to a terror campaign, resulting in what is often referred to as ‘state-sponsored violence’. Primarily, the vigilantes comprised old council members and their supporters who attacked and killed members and/or activists of an ANC-aligned United Democratic Front (UDF), according to Mzala.
One such leader is Victoria Mxenge. At her memorial service held at night, scores of bussed Inkatha vigilantes stormed in and attacked mourners, leaving somewhere in the region of eight.
The political violence, which decimated somewhere in the region of 20,000 people, between the ANC and the IFP ran into the early 1990s, nearly culminating not only in a civil war but also derailing the democratic order.
Through its state-sponsored violence, the IFP appeared keen to detail the democratic order, through mass killings, such as the Boipatong massacre. Incidentally, it had initially resolved to not partake in the country’s first-ever democratic elections.
Indeed, Buthelezi was the apartheid collaborator. He was not a man of peace. He was a heartless mass murderer, whose hands were full of indelible bloodstain. Such a person should not have been afforded the state funeral, not to mention the category one.
Sibusiso Samantungwa is an ANC member at Mzala Nxumalo Region in KwaZulu-Natal.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Republic Mail and its associates.
About Author
