Apartheid: Why I disagreed with Mandela, Tutu –Buthelezi
Your Excellency, why are you in Calabar? I have come to grace the birthday ceremony of my friend, His Holiness Olumba Olumba Obu and to consolidate on the goodwill of his Brotherhood of the Cross and Star. I have come to Calabar because I recognize that we were brought together by our shared interest in […]
Your Excellency, why are you in Calabar?
I have come to grace the birthday ceremony of my friend, His Holiness Olumba Olumba Obu and to consolidate on the goodwill of his Brotherhood of the Cross and Star. I have come to Calabar because I recognize that we were brought together by our shared interest in furthering the liberation of all people from the bonds of poverty, disease, social injustice and despair. I appreciate this man because he is so direct, not sugar-coating the truth on any issue and tickling our ears with promises of wealth and pleasure in this world. Christ Himself warned that in this world we would have troubles; not riches, but troubles. And what should our reaction be? We are to be of good cheer.
You sound deeply religious…
I am one of the least of God’s servants; a man who has known many troubles, many heartaches and conflicts. But I am a man who knows that the battle is the Lord’s, while the victory is ours. I could never have done all I have done without God. I could never have stood firm. I could never have persevered.
You were initially a member of the ANC where your political troubles began?
The ANC had been founded by my uncle, Dr Pixley ka Isaka Seme in 1912. It was only natural that when I entered the University of Fort Hare in 1948, I became involved in ANC’s Youth League. I paid a price for my political activities at Fort Hare University when I was rusticated together with two other students for staging a boycott against a visit by the governor-general, Dr. G. Brand van Zyl. Although his position was that of a titular head of state, we regarded him as the rubber stamp of our oppression. It was the first political price I would pay for having the courage of my convictions but it would by far not be the last. In a sense, this was the opening salvo in a lifelong battle in which standing up for what I believed to be right would cost me dearly. I continued my political activism against oppression and racial discrimination when I left Fort Hare and continued my studies at the University of Natal. As a student at Fort Hare I had met Mr Walter Sisulu, the secretary general of the ANC, and also Mr. Oliver Tambo who was then a member of the ANC Youth league. Through them, I met Mr. Nelson Mandela in Durban, whom I later discovered was a friend of my father-in-law, Mr. Zacchariah Mzila.
I built solid friendships with many of the leaders of my generation and we worked together for South Africa’s liberation from the moment we cut our political teeth, to the moment in April 194 when South Africa was declared a democracy. After that, we continued to work together in the Government of National Unity. But our relationship was tried by fire; so much that today, 17 years into democracy, there are still issues of conflict to be resolved between the various components of South Africa’s liberation movement.
When the ANC and PAC were banned in 1960, it became clear that the majority in our country would have no political home. I maintained communication with Mr. Oliver Tambo, the leader of the ANC’s mission-in-exile, and we met as often as we could in London, Mangoche, Nairobi, Lagos and Stockholm. We also exchanged emissaries. In 1963, I met with him in London on his way to the Anglican Congress in Canada as the lay delegate of the Anglican Diocese of Zululand and Swaziland. When I returned, the South African government confiscated my passport for nine years.
Did you therefore withdraw from the struggle?
On the contrary, I was elected chief executive officer of the Zulu Territorial Authority in 1970, and the government then found it difficult to refuse to give me a passport. Immediately I met Mr. Tambo again. I also travelled to the Vatican and met with Pope Paul VI. To date, he is the third Pontiff with whom I have had a private audience. I also travelled to the USA, the UK and Germany and sought support from world leaders for our liberation struggle. I continued seeking international support when I became chief minister of the erstwhile KwaZulu government, a position I held for 18 years.
I gained a vast deal of experience in administration during that time, and learnt the painfully difficult skill of balancing needs and resources. The government in KwaZulu was on a shoestring budget and we received proportionally less from the state coffers than any other Homeland government. Our administration had to work hand in hand with its people in order to meet the vast ocean of need in KwaZulu. Every day, I came face to face with the reality of poverty, distress and hardship. In a sense, I fell in love with my people during that time, because I saw the very worst in human nature expressed through the Apartheid regime, juxtaposed with the immeasurable generousity, long suffering and kindness of a people who had nothing. We worked hard to build schools and clinics and houses. There were no government handouts.
At what point did you begin to disagree with the ANC?
Good! In 1975, I founded the National Cultural Liberation Movement to offer a home to the disenfranchised majority. The following year, I met with Mr. Tambo in Nigeria at the invitation of former Head of State, General Olusegun Obasanjo. That year, Mr. Tambo addressed the UN General Assembly as the recognized representative of the South African people, and launched the ANC’s call for international sanctions against South Africa and large scale disinvestment. The leadership of the ANC on Robben Island then agreed to appoint Tambo as the President General of the ANC, and the ANC’s mission-on-exile launched the strategy of an armed struggle. Guerrilla warfare began in earnest. It was at this point that an ideological divide opened between Inkhatha and the ANC; a divide that would eventually become a chasm.
Why were you not willing to align forces with ANC which called for sanctions?
How could I possibly accept the call for international sanctions and disinvestment when I lived every day among the poorest of the poor and saw the pain that poverty inflicted? I knew that sanctions would not substantially affect the minority who were in power, as they would simply consolidate and form industrial monopolies. Instead, I warned, it was the poorest who would suffer. I paid a high price for expressing this view.
Nevertheless, I believed that damaging the economy of our country was simply damaging the inheritance we would all receive when political liberation was achieved.
So I opposed sanctions against South Africa and I travelled the world to see heads of state to appeal to them not to support the imposition of sanctions. I was warmly received by heads of state on the African continent who recognized my credentials as an opponent of Apartheid and a champion of liberation in South Africa.
You were also in Nigeria at the time!
In 1976, the then head of state, General Olusegun Obasanjo invited me to Nigeria on the same day that the Apartheid regime was to grant so-called ‘independence’ to Transkei. Through the Embassy in Pretoria, Obasanjo sent plane tickets for me, and my wife, princess Irene and my two aides. During that visit, I was to speak at the Institute for International Affairs in Lagos where I was hosted by Dr. Bolaji Akinyemi who was the director of the Institute and was later to become the Nigerian Foreign minister.
How did your face-ff with the ANC come to be?
In October 1979, Mr. Tambo suggested a meeting in London. 17 members of my party accompanied me to that meeting. In the end, we could just not agree. Within less than a year, the ANC launched a vicious campaign of vilification against me and Inkatha that would last for several decades. They maligned me throughout the world. I was labeled an Apartheid collaborator although I had accepted the leadership of KaZulu at the urging of Mr Tambo and Inkosi Albert Luthuli. The fact that I successfully undermined the Apartheid system from within did not erase the years of propaganda against me. Neither did former President FW de Klerk’s admission that it was I who convinced him to release Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners and to unban political parties, the years of vilification and propaganda did lasting damage, I must confess. At the height of the vilification campaign, I was even condemned by the World Council of Churches, of which my own Bishop and mentor, Bishop Alphaeus Zulu, had once been President. But still I could not agree with the ANC moving our liberation strategy away from non-violence and passive resistance. It would cost many of our people their lives but there would also be costs to pay in the future. The armed struggle was not an issue on which anyone could simply agree to disagree. It was emotionally charged and people’s lives literally hung in the balance. It was an extremely difficult time for Christians, because those of us who went against violence and an armed struggle were branded as traitors to our country. There was also no succor within the Church, as the mainline churches, to which I belonged, embraced the notion of a ‘just war’. Christian leaders were outspoken in their support.
How did you feel being seen as a traitor?
It was a painful time for me when I was branded a traitor and a sellout simply because I would not lead my people into war. I thank God for a lady by the name of Dr. Anthea Jeffrey, an academic who has engaged in comprehensive research of that period in our history and has written a seminal work called ‘People’s War’. I would encourage anyone to read it, but particularly those who seek to understand the true dynamics that shaped the violent struggle and internecine low intensity civil war that raged in South Africa during the 1980s and early 1990s.
Why did you fall out with Archbishop Desmond Tutu and how did you feel when the Truth and Reconciliation Committee accused you of bloodletting?
It was also difficult for me to be poles apart with Archbishop Desmond Tutu. We were of directly opposing views. Let me take you a bit back into history. When Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, the founder of the Pan Africanist Congress, died in 1978, I was invited to deliver his funeral oration by his brother Bishop Ernest Sobukwe and the leaders of the PAC in exile, who phoned me from London. At that funeral service, an attempt was made on my life by a group of youths. Archbishop Tutu publicly praised these young men, saying they were a new breed of young people with iron in their souls. This was from the head of my own church. Where then could I turn for comfort? When therefore President Mandela proposed Tutu as chairperson of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), I was a member of Cabinet, and I went on record with my objection, saying that the Archbishop had been a patron of the UDF in the time of conflict. The TRC required a non-partisan leadership. Nevertheless, Tutu chaired it. When I appeared before it, I boldly addressed the Chair and said, ‘Your Grace, I shall not be judged by you. God is my sole judge and I shall be judged by Him alone.’
In the end, the TRC concluded that I, in my representative capacity as chief minister of the KwaZulu government and head of the Kwazulu police, and as President of Inkatha, was responsible for more gross human rights violations than anyone else in South Africa – although I had never once condoned, sanctioned, authorized or ordered a single violantion of human rights. The pronouncement of the TRC was terribly painful for me to bear. Nevertheless, when Archbishop Tutu turned 80 last month, I was invited to the celebrations, and I went with nothing but forgiveness and goodwill in my heart. My Bible tells me no matter what humiliations and trials are heaped upon one, one must be able to forgive.
Can you speak about importance of political and religious tolerance in South Africa?
Today the word tolerance is very important in the country. When the leaders gather in the national House of Parliament, for instance, before we attend to the business of the day, we normally observe a moment of silence. In this moment, we are encouraged to pray or mediate as our faiths and consciences dictate on importance of tolerance and forgiveness.
I do understand the need for religious tolerance, particularly in a country whose population is as diverse as ours. I respect the right to freedom of religion, belief and opinion, as enshrined in the Bill of Rights of South Africa’s constitution. But I also believe that we will never truly express the love Christ called us to display if we seclude ourselves from one another.
Does it make me any less of a Christian that I befriend those outside the Christian faith? I think not; for Christ himself sat down to meals in the house of Gentiles and sinners, and we know that when the Pharisees questioned Him, He explained that those who are well have no need of a physician. Wherever we go as Christians, we are ambassadors of Christ, and where else can our lights shine brightly but in the very midst of darkness?