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E EPISCOPAL CHURCHPEOPLE for a FREE SOUTHERN AFRICA 339 Lafayette Street, New York, N.Y. 10012·2725 C (212) 4n-0066 FAX: (212) 979-1013 S A #145 21 february 1994 _SU_N_D_AY-.::..:20--:FEB:.=:..:;R..:..:U..:..:AR:..:.Y:.....:..:.1994::...::.-_---.". ----'-__THE OBSERVER_ Ten weeks before South Africa's elections, a race war looks increasingly likely, reports Phillip van Niekerk in Johannesburg TOKYO SEXWALE, the Afri In S'tanderton, in the Eastern candidate for the premiership of At the meeting in the Pretoria Many leading Inkatha mem can National Congress candidate Transvaal, the white town coun Natal. There is little doubt that showgrounds three weeks ago, bers have publicly and privately for the office of premier in the cillast Wednesday declared itself Natal will fall to the ANC on 27 when General Constand Viljoen, expressed their dissatisfaction at Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Veree part of an independent Boer April, which explains Buthelezi's head ofthe Afrikaner Volksfront, Inkatha's refusal to participate in niging province, returned shaken state, almost provoking a racial determination to wriggle out of was shouted down while advo the election, and could break from a tour of the civil war in conflagration which, for all the having to fight the dection.~ cating the route to a volkstaat not away. Angola last Thursday. 'I have violence of recent years, the At the very least, last week's very different to that announced But the real prize in Natal is seen the furure according to the country not yet experienced. concessions removed any trace of by Mandela last week, the im Goodwill Zwelithini, the Zulu right wing,' he said, vividly de The council's declaration pro a legitimate gripe against the new pression was created that the king and Buthelezi's nephew. scribing the scenes of death, de voked the entire population of constitution. 'grassroots' of Afrikanerdom With the king go the hearts and struction and famine he had wit the black township oflingehle to The moral high ground mat- favours the radical course ofwar. minds of hundreds of thousands nessed. 'It does not work.' march on Standerton. Police ters, because the ANC and the There is a counter, untested oftraditionalist Zulus. In a week when the ANC had threw up a barbed wire cordon as government are increasingly view that the AWB support is His demand last week for a approved sweeping constitu heavily-armed right-wingers hinting that they might be forced minimal, if vocal. The vast ma return to a Zulu kingdom in the tional concessions to try to save cocked their pistols, itching to to crack down on those who vio- jority of conservative Afrikaners style of that of the nineteenth the April elections and bring in fire the first shots in their war of lently disrupt, or threaten to dis- are frightened of the furure and century kings Dingaan and the right wing, Sexwale summed 'freedom'. rupt, the elections. what it means for their personal Shaka is more radical even than up the ANC's agonising choice: The worst nightmare of a race Over the objections ofshocked safety and identity as Afrikaners. Buthelezi's demands. The king is 'The Freedom Alliance is making liberals, the ANC and the They do not want to vote for the stoking the dangerous cauldron demands with a pistol pointed at war was narrowly averted. Ten National Party agreed to extend National Party, which they feel ofZulu nationalism. our heads and that pistol is civil weeks from the election, South Buthelezi guffawed when Africa is a fragile place. the life ofSection 29 ofthe Inter- has betrayed their interests. But war.' nal Security Act, the detention nor do they want to sacrifice crowds of Zulus booed De Klerk The hope of the ANC and the Mandela's announcement last in Durban last Monday, after he Wednesday night of concessions without trial provision under everything and go to war over a government is to shake the Free which so many ANC activists volkstaat that does not even exist met Zwelithini. However, the dom Alliance loose. Talks are on regional powers, the double king could be the biggest long ballot and a constitutional princi were held in their time. At least on a map. The ANC and the being held over the next few days 28 right-wingers have been net- government are determined not term threat to Buthelezi's power. with the Afrikaner Volksfront, ple for a volkstaat (people's state) This weekend the king is hold were an attempt to cool the ted under its provisions following to abandon these generally solid the Bophuthatswana government a spate of bombings of ANC of- qrizens to the racists and the ing a separate rally where, for and the Zulu king, Goodwill temperature. once, he will not have Buthelezi They were immediately fices in the Western Tran.svaal warmongers. Zwelithini. and Orange Free State. The next few days will tell peering over his shoulder. The Nelson Mandela, the ANC rejected by Buthelezi even king is now locked into separate though, as Colin Eglin, the Dem Dries Bruwer, the president of whether Mandela has sufficiently president, and President F. W. ·the Transvaal Agricultural strengthened the hand ofViljoen negotiations with De Klerk. de Klerk are seeking to break the ocratic Party leader, pointed out, KwaZulu insiders say the king they closely resembled the Union, said on Friday that 'at and the pragmatists, including at stranglehold that the spoilers and least 100,000 people who sup- least half the members of parlia does not want civil war. Ifhe does the extremists Chief amendments which Inkatha itself a deal with De Klerk, securing a put forward when the constitu port the volkstaat and refuse to be ment in the Conservative Party, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, presi governed by a Communist gov- to dislodge them from the constitutional monarchy in dent of the Inkatha Freedom tion was debated in parlillment Natal, he could leave Buthelezi only two months ago. emrnent are in possession ofmili- extremists. Party, and the Afrikaner tary weapons' - and are part of A similar process is under way isolated. Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) The concessions were the But Buthelezi is a street ANC's answer to the growing the ruraJ military reserve. in Natal, where the ANC and the under Eugene TerreBlanche Inevitable questions have been NP hope to detach Inkatha's fighter, repeatedly underesti have succeeded in exerting over perception that it has not done mated by his opponents, and he enough to woo the dissidents into raised about the loyalty of the moderates from the iron regime their constituencies. largely white-led security forces. of Buthelezi. The biggest hurdle is unlikely to sacrifice his trump The temperarure is rising. the election, and that it will have card without a fight. He and to shoulder a hefty proportion of ANC leaders are confident that is the pervasive climate of fear Early yesterday, gunmen, be they will act against disrupters, that dominates politics in the TerreBlanche, another crafty lieved to be Inkatha supporters, the blame if the country slides but there remains a gnawing KwaZulu capital ofUlundi. politician who tends to be under massacred 14 ANC canvassers, into civil war. doubt which will be all the more estimated, are rocklike in their aged 12-17, as they slept in the Mandela attempted last week insistent if the entire right wing ChiefSimon Gumede, a senior determination to stop the transi Natal village of Creighton. The to address these critics. And he remains alienated from the elec KwaZulu Cabinet Minister who tion to democracy. killing of the youths, who had made it clear that if he was un tion. During the 1992 referen advocated participation in the The ANC is caught between been planning a voter education able to bind Buthelezi in, it was dum, a third of the white elector- election, fled Ulundi for his tribe this rock and another hard place workshop, is the worst single in the intransigence of the Zulu in the Ubombo area in northern - the anger that is welling up in cident this year. chief, and not of the ANC, that ate and a slim majority ofAfrika Zululand last Wednesday, when the townships. Many ANC sup White liberals and their do created the impasse. ners voted against De Klerk's he found his name on a pamphlet porters do not understand why, mestic workers alike are stocking Even those foreign supporters refonns. This constituency has listing 21 alleged ANC activists on the eve of their liberation, up with bully beef tins and dry who have remained sold on the not yet been won for the new within the KwaZulu their leaders have to walk so biscuits for the winter. Apocry image of Buthelezi as the ma democracy. administration. many extra miles to appease the phal stories ofapproaching doom ligned moderate must now be Suspicions that the pamphlet Right. Any change to the election are put about as fact. Sometimes prepared to countenance a far ,.. was little more than a hit list were date of27 April could provoke an they come true. In Natal, a more gloomy analysis ofthe man. borne out last weekend, when uprising. remote farmhouse is occupied by Opinion polls show his party Thabiso Ngubane, the registrar In that case, the fate of South unifonned gunmen who have with less than 5 per cent support of Nongoma College in Zulu Africa will be decided through come to 'redistribute' the land. nationally, and in third place in land, whose name also appeared bloodbaths in the small towns of There is uncertainty, confusion Natal behind the ANC and the on the list, was shot dea.d. the Orange Free State and the and an edginess that could turn National Party.