TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/082790/0827005.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.8 KB | 123 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 43

SOUTH AFRICA

Roar of the Lions


The official armed struggle may be suspended, but bloody tribal
violence threatens to split the black majority and destroy
Mandela's authority

By GUY D. GARCIA -- Reported by Peter Hawthorne/Cape Town


    The slaughter began with an incident all too familiar in
South Africa's seething black urban townships. Returning from
a Sunday drinking session in a local shebeen, or pub, a noisy
group of Xhosa migrant workers from the grim, single-sex
hostels of Tokoza township clashed with a crowd of Zulu rivals.
Insults were traded, weapons brandished. When the dust settled,
a man lay dead. Some said the victim was a Zulu killed by
Xhosas, others a Xhosa killed by Zulus. In the end it hardly
mattered: the murder unleashed tribal-based animosities that
date back centuries and have claimed 4,000 people over the past
three years.

    The conflagration of factional fighting last week went on
for six days. It left at least 200 people dead and hundreds
wounded -- in one week, more black civilians died than the
African National Congress's guerrilla campaign killed in 30
years. As the bloodletting raged, the A.N.C. found itself
standing side by side with the government of President F.W. de
Klerk in desperately trying to bring peace to the strife-torn
townships.

    In the Tokoza, Katlehong and Vosloorus sections around
Johannesburg, roving bands of Zulus set houses on fire and
attacked fleeing residents with guns, spears and butcher
knives. Whole villages fled in terror as Zulu impis went on the
warpath, kicking up dust with their traditional war dances and
waving sticks, pangas and stabbing spears. Some victims were
doused with gasoline and set aflame; others were hacked to death
with axes. As the carnage spread to Soweto, at least 35 people
died. Police tore down barricades of burning tires and debris
and used tear gas and armored vehicles to keep the warring
factions apart.

    The bloody outbreak is a setback for Nelson Mandela and the
A.N.C., which only two weeks earlier had announced that it was
suspending its 29 years of armed struggle against the
government. Complicating matters further is the political
dimension of the tribal warfare, which is linked to a
long-standing feud between Mandela's A.N.C. and the Inkatha
movement led by Mangosuthu Buthelezi, Chief Minister of
Kwazulu, the tribal homeland of the country's 7 million Zulus.
While Inkatha leaders have publicly deplored the killings, the
violence is considered a sign of the Zulus' frustration over
De Klerk's failure to include them in negotiations for a new
constitution.

    The political face-off between the A.N.C. and the mostly
Zulu Inkatha membership has long threatened to break the black
majority apart. Buthelezi, who was once an active member of the
A.N.C.'s Youth League, persistently condemned the outlawed
congress for its policy of violence and has always maintained
that his 1.5 million-member Inkatha movement is more
representative of South Africa's blacks. From its outposts in
exile, the A.N.C. called Buthelezi a puppet of the South African
government and a traitor to the black cause and threatened to
have him assassinated.

    Tensions between the two groups have grown even worse since
last February, when the government released Mandela, a Xhosa
from the Transkei, from prison and legalized the A.N.C. Mandela
had agreed to talk with Buthelezi but then abruptly canceled
the meeting. When young A.N.C. radicals began to assert
themselves in the townships, many of the older, traditionalist
Zulus decided it was time to teach the upstarts a lesson. "When
they began calling us Zulu donkeys, we reminded them that all
Xhosas are dogs," said a Tokoza hostel dweller. "Now they know
that the Zulu donkeys are lions."

    Mandela and De Klerk held an urgent, unscheduled meeting in
Pretoria to discuss ways to stanch the bloodletting and agreed
that the rival black organizations should establish joint
committees in the townships to cooperate with police in
implementing a cease-fire. Next day Mandela met with Law and
Order Minister Adriaan Vlok in Soweto, where both men made an
appeal for calm and agreed to set up a "peace forum" composed
of police, A.N.C. and Inkatha representatives.

    Violence also surfaced at the other end of the political
spectrum. In Vryheid in northern Natal, a tear-gas bomb
believed to have been thrown by right-wing extremists went off
in a meeting hall where De Klerk was about to address a crowd
of whites. Undaunted, De Klerk moved the meeting outside and
reaffirmed that there was "no turning back" from his policy of
seeking a new social order.

    Nevertheless the incident was a sobering reminder of
political divisions within De Klerk's camp and the likelihood
that conservatives will not hesitate to use intertribal warfare
as an excuse to slow or halt reforms. More damaging perhaps is
the effect the riots could have on the credibility of Mandela,
who may find it harder to convince nervous whites that any
political deals struck with the A.N.C. would be respected by
all black South Africans.

    By week's end a relative calm was restored through most of
the country, yet it was clear that the peace would only be
temporary without a binding truce between Mandela and
Buthelezi. Agreeing that no solution could be found "without
the involvement" of his rivals, Mandela said perhaps he and
Buthelezi could address peace rallies together. But, he added,
"there have been many complicating factors." When both sides
count the final cost of this week's encounters, the numbers of
dead and the cries for vengeance will certainly further slow
progress along the painful road to abolishing apartheid.