Peace moves are being likened to the secret negotiations between the NP and ANC, write Eddie Koch and Enoch Mthembu
SLOWLY, agonisingly, Kwa-Zulu-Natal may be heading for peace. The most recent sign that centripetal forces are beginning to dominate the politics of South Africa’s most turbulent region was a report this week that Mangosuthu Buthelezi was willing to entertain a merger with his arch-enemies in the African National Congress.
Unity between the rival nationalist movements in KwaZulu-Natal “would be an ideal thing”, Buthelezi was quoted as saying in the Sunday Times. “I do not see why it should not happen.”
The front-page story was followed by a flurry of “corrections and clarifications”. Lasting peace in the province would depend on the ANC recognising the “paramount role” of the Inkatha Freedom Party, said Buthelezi in a statement the next day. The ANC had to “take into account that our kingdom of KwaZulu-Natal had to be recognised”, he added.
Traditional leaders still want to discuss a range of grievances about their “maltreatment” at the hands of the central government. The question of amnesty for warlords on both sides is still unresolved.
But, significantly, the hardline IFP leader did not deny he had spoken positively about the possibility of a merger. A powerful caucus from each of the rival political parties, led by IFP Premier Ben Ngubane and ANC provincial leader Jacob Zuma, has been meeting behind closed doors for nearly a year to discuss a peace pact for the province.
When the last round took place three weeks ago, all the participants knew the attitude of the Inkatha leader, who has consistently defied efforts by the ANC’s centrists to cultivate support from moderates in his party, was critical for success.
A quick trip around the corridors of the grand colonial building that houses the legislature in Pietermaritzburg this week revealed only one certainty about the provincial parley: talks have reached such a sensitive stage that everyone involved is resolutely sticking to an agreement that the contents be kept secret. Which is another reason why Buthelezi’s public comments have created such a stir.
“I was with some senior IFP people on Sunday and they were quite surprised when they read the paper,” said Amichand Rajbansi of the Minority Front. “Buthelezi made some qualifications on Monday, but there is still a heavy emphasis on peace. It is quite clear that inside the IFP there is no longer any support for the idea of working with the Nats to win the province.
“The ANC also realises its chances of running the province alone are remote. They know the only chance is for both of them to work together.”
Both parties liken the situation to the secret negotiations which took place in exile between the National Party and the ANC, which prepared the way for a breakthrough in efforts to end apartheid peacefully.
IFP parliamentarian Philip Powell, who sat in on the last round of peace talks, told the Mail & Guardian both parties are adhering to a strict confidentiality agreement. “What I can say is both sides have tabled position papers. We are in the process of studying these and exchanging views.
“These are just the opening salvos in the debate. At this stage, there is no formal discussion about one party merging into the other.”
Powell added the main objective is to “reach an accord” on the right of each party to exist, and to ensure “a normalisation of relations” between the two. A key item on the agenda of the recent round of talks was a new mechanism to provide amnesty for people on each side involved in the violence which has claimed up to 18 000 lives over the past four years.
“There is now a structured approach to the question of a special amnesty arrangement for this province. It is far more conservative than the earlier suggestions that there be a blanket amnesty in the region.”
ANC leaders were reluctant to explore details of the peace talks in the corridors of the parliamentary building. Some confirmed, however, that a new set of amnesty proposals is being prepared for discussion within their party’s provincial structures.
Others stressed a core component of the talks is a “memorandum of understanding” that there be a concerted effort to ensure economic development, especially in violence-prone rural areas, without one party trying to compete with the other for the kudos of delivery.
“This is probably the most vital element of the peace process taking place,” said Rajbansi. “Each party has realised the basic support of the other cannot be shaken. They know debates about who achieved effective delivery or is responsible for non-delivery will not affect how each of them fare at the elections in 1999.
“There is a tendency, which I would like to see strengthened, which says let’s work together during a phase of development and fight about politics after it has been delivered.”
About 60km south of the Howick Falls, just off the highway between Durban and Pietermaritzburg, is a ghetto called Tintown, because its people live in houses of silver corrugated iron built for refugees from a mini civil war which was fought in nearby Hammarsdale during the 1980s.
Tintown reflects signs that the centrist tendencies taking shape in the provincial capital are beginning to spread into some of the rural flashpoints of the province. It is one of those places where intrigue and convoluted local politics can escalate, in a flash, into murder and mayhem.
Last year, Tintown’s young football team beat the boys from a neighbouring settlement called Panekeni in a two-day tournament. The losers added to their grumbles complaints that there were people in Tintown who secretly supported the IFP. A series of night attacks was launched from ANC support bases on homes in the shantytown, and in December these culminated in the gruesome massacre of nine Inkatha supporters.
Moderates in the provincial leadership of both parties saw the place as an emblem of the centrifugal forces that threaten to tear their peace process apart. The ANC suspended officials in its local branch accused of complicity in the murders. A subcommittee of the Portfolio Committee on Safety and Security was set up to deal with the violence.
Minister of Safety and Security Sydney Mufamadi, along with Nyanga Ngubane, the provincial MEC for traditional affairs, have made high-profile visits. And top police teams have set up camp near the shantytown to control violence and broker civic co-operation.
The result? Violent skirmishes have been curtailed.
This week provincial leaders from both parties met at the makeshift police station to work out joint security arrangements for an IFP rally on Saturday, an event that would have been unthinkable in no-go zones like this six months ago.
Said Ntombekayisa Msomi: “We wish to see the ANC and IFP joining hands. We were never IFP members, but we were forced by the attacks that came after the soccer match to join the IFP for protection. I feel bad that today I am meeting the ANC leaders as enemies when we were once part of them.”
Back in the old town of Pietermaritzburg are reminders that politics in this unpredictable province can wheel into any number of destructive spirals. One of these is Sifiso Nkabinde, a menacing figure who is standing outside a car filled with bodyguards in the parking lot of the building.
Nkabinde, a warlord who effectively rules the Richmond area near Pietermaritzburg with the help of his armed thugs, was expelled from the ANC earlier this year on grounds that he was a police spy and was implicated in a series of political murders.
In a sign that the province still lacks a culture of law and order, a man who is known to conduct a reign of terror on his home turf is able to rent offices for his new political movement next to the Department of Land Affairs without fear of being arrested on any of the killings his group is reputed to have carried out.
Today Nkabinde is polite but too busy to talk to the press. He is on the way to Durban with his men to attend a series of meetings ahead of his plans to launch a new political party with fellow ANC dissident General Bantu Holomisa.
The two men, whose relationship is alleged to have begun in the apartheid era when Nkabinde travelled to the Transkei homeland (then ruled by Holomisa) to collect weapons for ANC paramilitary units in the Pietermaritzburg area, have been drawing large crowds of late.
They are picking up support from militant youth, concerned about the growing moderation of their leaders and the secrecy that surrounds the peace talks. And Holomisa is capable of winning ethnic support in the shantytowns of Dambuza, where there are large populations of Xhosa migrants, as well as the southern parts of KwaZulu-Natal, where some Xhosa-speakers are loyal to him.
But most of the politicians we spoke to in Pietermaritzburg are not overly concerned about the power of a Holomisa-Nkabinde alliance.
Perhaps more worrying to both parties is a new and top-secret report which was produced in the headquarters of the National Intelligence Agency in the province this week.
It shows armed groups are active in many parts of the province as a number of warlords who mobilised around political issues in the past have now turned to various forms of underground crime to retain their power and privilege.