As the country remembers the founder and long-standing leader of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi, his role in South Africa’s journey toward democracy remains shrouded in controversy.
The 95-year-old passed away in the early hours of Saturday morning.
He founded the Inkatha Freedom Party at the behest of long-serving African National Congress (ANC) President Oliver Tambo, but it soon became a thorn in the side of the then liberation movement.
After years of deadly fighting between the ANC and the IFP in Kwazulu-Natal and Gauteng, the IFP went on to contest the first democratic elections and became part of the country’s first post-democratic administration
At the time of his passing, Buthelezi’s party was slowly regaining lost ground in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal
Sometimes referred to by his clan name, Shenge, Buthelezi was a political enigma.
Prince Buthelezi, or as many others call him – uMmntwana wakwa Phindangenee – has been without question one of the most polarising political figures South Africa has ever produced.
Today he’s known as a unifier by some, but those familiar with his history remember him as a war-monger whose hands, until the very end, dripped with the blood of the thousands killed across the country’s townships in the late 80s and the early 90s.
Buthelezi’s political career spans five decades and he has seen South Africa’s transition from Apartheid into a democratic state.
In 1975, Buthelezi founded Inkatha Yenkululeko Yesizwe, or what we today know as the IFP.
This, he said, was at the behest of the ANC’s longest serving president Oliver Tambo, who was in exile in Lusaka, Zambia after liberation movements had been banned from the country.
Inkatha was meant to be an ANC insider in SA. However, relations between the two turned frosty when the liberation movement embarked on an armed struggle against apartheid.
Buthelezi said he believed in non-violence as the ideal method of resistance against Apartheid.
He had also accepted the oppressive regime’s homelands or Bantustan arrangement as he argued that his participation in the Apartheid system was the ideal way to beat it.
This earned him titles such as sellout and an anti-revolutionary.
By the early 80’s, tensions, including with ANC and aligned UDF had spilled over into full on violence.
And when the dust had settled – with South Africa being on the brink of democracy – it is believed that well over 20,000 people had died.
Buthelezi himself saw this as a low-level civil war. However, until his last breath, he failed to take responsibility for the killings by IFP-aligned militias across several townships.
His Inkatha trainees were found by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to have been responsible for the murders of ANC and United Democratic Front (UDF) activists. The trainees were men trained by the South African Defence Force.
In the run up to 1994, the prince lobbied for a federalist state and paved the way for the Ingonyama Trust.
After pulling out of the talks towards the 1994 breakthrough, and repeated threats to boycott the elections, Buthelezi finally capitulated at the last minute.
Following the April 27 polls, he formed part of the government of national unit, serving in former president Nelson Mandela’s Cabinet.
After 44 years at the helm, Buthelezi stepped down as president of his party in 2019, but stayed on as president emeritus.
His popularity remained at the centre of his party’s activities, including on election posters, even after he stepped down.
His attempts to make Inkatha a multi-ethnic political party failed to catch on, with it still largely being seen as a KZN and specifically Zulu party.
This article first appeared on EWN: Political enigma Mangosuthu Buthelezi passes away aged 95
