Word: buthelezi
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Whether in his well-cut business suits or ceremonial skins and feathers, Buthelezi is the country's other black leader. When Mandela and De Klerk meet in Cape Town this week to debate obstacles to negotiations, Buthelezi will be conspicuously absent. Unlike the African National Congress leader, he sees no roadblocks to immediate talks. Many whites and conservative blacks, not to mention Western leaders such as George Bush and Margaret Thatcher, admire Buthelezi's readiness to compromise and his embrace of capitalism. Antiapartheid militants, however, dismiss him as a puppet who has long collaborated with the white minority government against...
...South Africans begin efforts to redraw their political map, even Buthelezi's critics must acknowledge that he is a force to be reckoned with. His power and the ruthlessness of many of his supporters are more apparent than ever in the three-year-old civil war between Inkatha, the Zulu-based mass political and cultural movement, and the A.N.C., which has turned the green hills of Natal province into South Africa's worst killing field. Since Mandela's release in February, Buthelezi's supporters have repeatedly invaded A.N.C. strongholds with shotguns and pangas. The upsurge in violence has left some...
...deal with Buthelezi has caused an embarrassing disagreement between Mandela and fellow A.N.C. officials. While in prison, Mandela infuriated some in the congress by writing a conciliatory letter to Buthelezi. Recently Mandela proposed meeting with Buthelezi as a way of cooling down the conflict, but then he abruptly withdrew the offer. Mandela admitted last week that some of his comrades "nearly throttled me" over the issue...
Most of the A.N.C. regards Buthelezi, who formed Inkatha in 1975 after working with the congress, as a sellout. They accuse him of abetting apartheid by serving as chief minister of KwaZulu, one of the ten "homelands" where blacks can exercise their political rights. The A.N.C. also condemns Buthelezi for opposing the "armed struggle" and international sanctions against Pretoria...
...least Mandela appears to understand, Buthelezi cannot be wished away. He has built up a solid constituency, though it is less representative than he would admit. Most of Inkatha's estimated 1.7 million members are Zulus residing in the KwaZulu homeland within Natal. And some of Buthelezi's policies make sense. Mandela's adherence to socialism seems outdated compared with Buthelezi's advocacy of free enterprise. The Zulu chief's repeated calls for compromise are now being loudly echoed by Mandela. And Buthelezi's pioneering Natal-KwaZulu Indaba, a formula for black-white power sharing in local government...