Enoch Mthembu
THE only life that Daluxolo Luthuli has known is that of a professional fighter. He joined Umkhonto weSizwe at the age of 14 and since then has taken part in numerous armed operations, first for the ANC and then for Inkatha.
Luthuli went into exile in the early 1960s and received military training with the first batch of MK guerrillas in the Soviet Union, where he developed a close relationship with Chris Hani.
In the mid-1960s he formed part of the Luthuli Brigade, a specialist MK unit that was named after his grandfather, Chief Albert Luthuli. The brigade received its first battle experience after being sent into what was then Rhodesia to fight in the Wankie Campaign.
An MK veteran who took part in the campaign said Luthuli excelled as a soldier both in training and on the battlefield. “When other MK members went out drinking on weekends he went to the range to practise shooting. He had a reputation for being a sharpshooter but did not like using an AK-47 rifle. His favourite was a light machine gun,” said Luthuli’s former colleague, who asked not to be named.
“He was full of humour and good fun to be with but deadly serious about everything he did.” He said Luthuli had been encouraged to join MK by his father, who was a strong ANC supporter. “Daluxolo also had a fierce Zulu national pride and this may have played a part in his decision to join Inkatha.”
He was arrested by security police in Durban while on a clandestine operation and sent to Robben Island for 10 years. After his release in the early 1980s, Luthuli made contact with Inkatha and appears to have been offered a senior post.
He then played a major role in building Inkatha’s paramilitary capacity — often, it appears, in collaboration with the South African Defence Force’s Department of Military Intelligence.
Another Inkatha defector, former Youth League leader Mbongeni Khumalo, said that although he was not a formal member, Luthuli sat in on all meetings of Inkatha’s central committee in the 1980s.
Luthuli was known to have been extremely close to his father who died last year. He surprised Natal ANC leaders by arriving at the funeral, held in an ANC- controlled part of Hammarsdale, and addressing the crowd.
During his interview with the Weekly Mail & Guardian, Daluxolo Luthuli said his father had frequently urged him to turn his back on Inkatha and rejoin the ANC.