FRIDAY, 2.30PM:
THE Inkatha Freedom Party has suspended peace talks with the African National Congress in KwaZulu-Natal, because of testimony to the truth commission this week about the “Caprivi 200” IFP trainees given paramilitary training by the SADF in the 1980s.
IFP national chairman said the party’s provincial caucus had “withdrawn” the mandate of peace negotiators. He said it is difficult to hold peace talks while “hostile activity” is in progress.
Former Caprivi trainees told the TRC this week that Buthelezi must have known of the group’s hit-squad activities. Ngubane described the TRC as a creation of the ANC, adding that its “power and authority” had become an instrument to “hit” Buthelezi and the IFP.
IFP provincial caucus spokesman Blessed Gwala said the commission hearing “is a war declared by those who are trying to tarnish the image of Buthelezi and the IFP”.
ANC KwaZulu-Natal deputy chairman Sibisiso Ndebele said all the province’s people are tired of war and will not allow anyone to hold the peace process to ransom.
Meanwhile, former Caprivi trainee and convicted assassin Brian Gcina Mkhize, 31, continued with his testimony to the truth commission on Thursday.
In his latest testimony, Mkhize claimed that KwaZulu-Natal welfare MEC Prince Gideon Zulu and other high-ranking IFP members were involved in setting up a hit-squad in the Esikhawini area near Empangeni. Mkhize was convicted of six murders committed when he was a part of the Esikhawini hit squad, for which he was sentenced in 1995 to 25 years’ jail.
Mkhize said Zulu was often present at hit-squad meetings, and it was on Zulu’s instruction that they had stopped attacking individual targets and began attacking groups of people. He said others at the inaugural meeting included Robert Mzimela, now secreatry of the KwaZulu-Natal legislature and Zakhekle “MZ” Khumalo, Buthelezi’s former secretary and recently elected secretary-general of the IFP. Mkhize said he also worked closely in Ezikhawini with BB Biyela, currently the mayor of Richards Bay, and Lindiwe Mbuyazi, currently an IFP MP.