By Norm Dixon
The trial of Magnus Malan and the other apartheid generals in Durban is revealing the extent of Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi's sordid collaboration with the apartheid regime. It is now apparent that Buthelezi himself was part of the conspiracy to create apartheid-backed death squads.
Documents published by the Weekly Mail and Guardian reveal that the decision to establish hit squads was made by the State Security Council. The highest officials of the apartheid state sat on the SSC, including current GNU members deputy president F.W. de Klerk and mines minister Pik Botha.
An SSC subcommittee organised the training and arming of 200 Inkatha loyalists to counter the popularity of the United Democratic Front and the ANC's military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe, in KwaZulu/Natal. The group was trained by the SADF special forces in the Caprivi Strip in Namibia in 1986.
Throughout the 1980s, as Pretoria stridently denied charges that Buthelezi was an apartheid puppet, documents show the SSC's operation was cynically code-named "Project Marion", derived from the word "marionette". The core of the project was to boost Inkatha and other black conservative groupings militarily and politically.
"If the Charterists [ANC-UDF] succeed in neutralising Inkatha, it is unlikely that the other groups will be able to withstand the pressure against them. The end result of this will be that the government will only have the whites as a bastion against the revolutionary onslaught on the Republic of South Africa", states a document dated December 19, 1985. "Inkatha and the ZCC's [Zionist Christian Church] willingness to actively resist revolutionary elements provides a golden opportunity for the State to pull a meaningful and influential section of the black population into a counter-insurgency and mobilisation programme."
Documents describe in detail the arming and organisation of covert Inkatha military units but also emphasise that links between the regime and Inkatha must be kept secret so that Buthelezi's image would not be tarnished. "Open SADF support to Chief Minister Buthelezi will clearly have a negative impact on [his] power base ... Any support must be clandestine or covert. Not one of the leaders must, as a result of SADF support, be branded as marionettes of the South African government by the enemy."
Minutes of a meeting on November 25, 1985, between Buthelezi and General Tienie Groenewald, then chief of Military Intelligence and now also on trial, record Buthelezi requesting a paramilitary force and an intelligence unit to counter advances by the UDF-ANC alliance in Natal.
Senior Inkatha official M.Z. Khumalo was appointed liaison officer between the SADF and Inkatha. The documents prove that Buthelezi gave Khumalo instructions about the paramilitary force and that he was aware of the offensive unit, its training and deployment.
A report dated October 16, 1986, and drawn up by Brigadier John More, one of Malan's co-accused, says Buthelezi expressed thanks to the SADF late in 1986 after the first batch of paramilitary fighters had been trained and sent back to KwaZulu. More added: "the Chief Minister is worried about his image and that he recently had to criticise General Malan because of certain statements he made but these comments were made with tongue-in-cheek".
Documents as recent as 1989 reveal Buthelezi was fully aware of the activities of the paramilitary group. A summary of a meeting in 1989 between Buthelezi and Brigadier Cornelius van Niekerk (another co-accused in the murder trial), prepared by Van Niekerk, says bluntly: "The chief minister ... hinted that 'offensive actions' were still a requirement, meaning the use of 'hit squads'".