By Norm Dixon
Local government elections in KwaZulu/Natal scheduled for May 29 have been again postponed due to escalating violence in the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) controlled province. The local poll, which took place in most other parts of South Africa on November 1, is now expected to held at the end of June.
President Nelson Mandela said the cabinet decision was because free and fair elections were not possible. Conservative IFP-aligned traditional chiefs — the amakhosi — are refusing to allow the African National Congress to campaign in rural areas they control. There has been widespread interference in the voter registration process and other irregularities.
Prior to the May 6 cabinet meeting, IFP leader Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi warned that a postponement would increase the violence. At least 1500 people have been killed in the province since the 1994 election. There are an estimated 500,000 internal refugees. While Buthelezi afterwards accepted the decision, ANC activists and human rights monitors are bracing themselves for an intensification of the virtual civil war in KwaZulu/Natal.
Former apartheid collaborator Buthelezi has not given up his goal of total control of the region. Prior to the 1994 elections, violence spearheaded by IFP goons, backed by covert wings of the apartheid regime's security forces who have been dubbed the "Third Force", spiralled out of control in KwaZulu/Natal and then spilled into the Johannesburg region.
The latest escalation in political violence began after the horrific December 25 massacre of 19 people in Shobashobane, a village with strong ANC support, by more than 600 Inkatha supporters armed with "traditional" weapons. The IFP provincial government attempted to block investigation of the massacre by the national government, claiming policing is a provincial matter. The IFP called demonstrations and stay-aways to protest the arrest of local IFP leaders by a crack investigation unit appointed by the national government.
On March 27, an ANC leader and candidate, and chairperson of Umlazi Civic Association, Daniel Danisa, was gunned down. Two other ANC leaders were severely injured. They were attacked after a joint meeting with IFP leaders about upgrading railway stations. The ANC in a statement said it was in "no doubt that this is the beginning of the assassination campaign of ANC leaders".
The violence is also related to the split between Buthelezi and the paramount traditional leader of the Zulu people, King Goodwill Zwelithini. Since the 1994 election, the previously subservient Zwelithini has distanced himself from Buthelezi and Inkatha, and pledged to represent all Zulus regardless of party affiliation.
Tensions increased after the IFP disrupted a March 15 meeting hosted by Zwelithini at his Nongoma palace attended by Mandela, Buthelezi and KwaZulu/Natal's amakhosi to discuss the holding of an imbizo — a mass gathering of the Zulu nation — with the aim of restoring peace. Mandela was met by jeering pro-Inkatha amakhosi and their followers. Mandela told them bluntly they could shout "until you are blue in the face", but the killing of innocent people must stop.
To approval from the chiefs, Buthelezi accused the ANC-led GNU of using the trial of apartheid-era defence minister Magnus Malan to extract "revenge against the Zulu nation". Ten former senior apartheid military officers as well as Inkatha deputy secretary general M.Z. Khumalo are being tried for murder and conspiracy stemming from the massacre of 13 people in 1987.
Buthelezi also sharply criticised the GNU's outlawing of the public display during demonstrations of what he coyly refers to as "traditional accoutrements" — weapons such as spears, machetes, knobkerries (clubs) and even sharpened iron bars.
Plans for an imbizo were abandoned.
On March 28, suspected IFP goons attacked the Royal Palace at Mbelebeleni in KwaMashu, killing King Zwelithini's cousin and severely injuring Queen Buhlebuni, the king's second wife, Princess Sibusile and other members of the royal household. Princess Nonhlanhla Zulu was abducted from the palace and found murdered a few days later.