Ann Eveleth
Violence monitors have been clamouring for this week’s security force deployments for months now, warning that KwaZulu-Natal was on the slippery slope back to last year’s pre-election chaos.
A Markinor report released this week to business leaders said as much, warning that, “the KwaZulu-Natal situation is acute and is beginning to resemble that of the pre-April 1994 period”.
While there have been no dramatic leaps in the post- election death toll, Human Rights Committee (HRC) Durban researcher Makubetse Sekhonyane warned that the supporters of both the African National Congress and the Inkatha Freedom Party were stepping up their territorial expansion efforts: “Both parties are trying to consolidate and protect their territory in the run- up to local government elections,” he said.
Pointing to the South Coast, where more than 26 deaths were reported by the HRC between May and July, Sekhonyane said the area was “largely IFP-controlled, with small pockets of ANC support in Gcilima, Gamahlake and Izingolweni. Both parties are consolidating their areas by attacking their opponents.”
Sekhonyane could not confirm reports this week by Network of Independent Monitors (NIM) South Coast official Sylvan Chetty that “a third force is still operating in the area”, but said there were many violent incidents which appeared not to originate from either of the two groups.
Natal Violence Monitor Mary de Haas said violence was being committed by groups of people moving from one area to another, and argued that, “the IFP doesn’t have the capacity to do this alone. There are both white and black conservatives involved.”
Explaining the discrepancies between her figures and those of the HRC, De Haas said both criminal and political violence was “taking place in a context in which people are preparing for war. What is often classified as criminal or faction fighting is taking place with G-3 rifles issued by the former KwaZulu government, by people assisted by the police in certain areas and involving people from para-military
“People are being trained and they are being armed. The nature of the conflict is that of an insurgency,” added De Haas.
“When you have local warlords and gangs running around, heavily armed, committing robbery, rape and other criminal acts in the process of their political thuggery, the acts have to be classified as political, because the reason those people are allowed to remain is politics.”
De Haas said violence on the South Coast, in Umbumbulu and in Mandini, was linked to warlords who operated in the areas.
Another dynamic affecting violence in the province appears to be attempts by refugees to return to their areas. Sekhonyane said the recent upsurge in the Midlands town of Bulwer was linked to attempts by ANC refugees driven out of the area last year to return
In Mandini, Sekhonyane referred to the recent relative quiet as “the calm before the storm — you never know when it will break out again”.