Violence is “endemic” to South Africa and blame for it can be no more neatly apportioned than can blame for violence in Israel and Lebanon, Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi told Jewish organizational leaders this week.
Buthelezi was deflecting charges that the Inkatha Freedom Party he heads bears responsibility for much of the bitter violence which has killed thousands of blacks in South Africa’s impoverished townships.
The accusation was driven home by two dozen protesters marching outside the offices of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, bearing placards saying “Stop the Killing” and “Apartheid Mercenary.”
Buthelezi, who recently visited Israel, told the American Jewish leaders that his country and Israel both need economic growth to fulfill their people’s needs and aspirations.
“Now that Israel has lifted sanctions against South Africa, relations between our two countries have taken a new direction — that of increased cooperation. The Inkatha Freedom Party is looking to extend this cooperation to Jewish communities around the world,” Buthelezi said.
The Inkatha Freedom Party claims 2 million members and the right to be seen as a major force — along with the African National Congress and the reform-minded white minority government of F.W. de Klerk — in the constitutional process to design a new, non-racial South Africa.
The leader of South Africa’s 6 million-member Zulu community, Buthelezi has long been a controversial figure among anti-apartheid activists for his opposition to international sanctions against his country, a position at odds with that of the ANC.
Unlike ANC leader Nelson Mandela, Buthelezi already wields political power — harshly, charge critics — as chief minister of the legislative assembly of KwaZulu, the Zulu homeland.
MEETING SEEN AS ENDORSEMENT
Buthelezi told the 45 Jewish organizational leaders at Tuesday’s meeting that “it takes two to tango,” referring to the ANC.
Many observers, however, say the violence among blacks reflects collusion between the South African security forces and Inkatha aimed at disabling the ANC.
Buthelezi equated criticism of his group to that directed at Israel for Middle East violence.
“Who is responsible for violence in Israel or Lebanon? You know people blame Israel for the violence,” he said.
“You know about violence,” he continued. “There is retaliatory violence, then there is feud violence; there is pre-emptive violence as well. It is not orchestrated by me. I have not sat down to plot the death of any individual.”
He accused the ANC of refusing to disarm and maintaining caches of weapons, and described the deaths of many Inkatha supporters at the hands of the ANC.
His Jewish audience appeared to receive Buthelezi’s arguments with respectful skepticism. The racially mixed group of demonstrators outside, however, accused the Jewish organizational leaders of having endorsed Buthelezi.
“By sponsoring Buthelezi, the conference loses its thin credibility on this issue (of South Africa) and once again demonstrates how totally out of touch it is with the sentiments of most American Jews on critical social issues,” charged a statement issued by New Jewish Agenda and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice.
Malcolm Hoenlein, executive director of the conference, said Buthelezi had asked to speak before the group. Expressing amazement at how the issue had been blown out of proportion, Hoenlein said activists had called to complain that the conference had underwritten Buthelezi’s trip.
‘NOTHING FOR US TO FEEL GUILTY ABOUT’
In fact, said Hoenlein, not only was that false, but Buthelezi’s itinerary for his weeklong U.S. visit included meetings with the Black Congressional Caucus and an appearance on Michael Jackson’s radio show.
In the past, representatives of the Conference of Presidents’ constituent organizations have met with Mandela, and invitations have been extended to other ANC leaders.
“There’s nothing for us to feel guilty about,” said Kenneth Jacobson, director of international affairs for the Anti-Defamation League. “He’s a man with a point of view, and that should be heard.”
In his remarks, Buthelezi emphasized his party’s free-market approach, which contrasts to the communism advocated for decades by the rival ANC.
“Poverty will always be the greatest enemy of democracy,” he said, calling for renewed investment in South Africa, “now suffering from sanctions and years of centralism.”
In a gesture typical of political figures speaking at the Conference of Presidents podium, Buthelezi opened his address by praising Israel and lauding last year’s victory over Iraq.
But his most sharply targeted political point, however, may have been in the subsequent discussion of political violence. Political violence, he said, had been introduced as an ideology by the ANC and the Organization of African Unity.
“I am not a friend of (Libyan leader Moammar) Gadhafi or (Palestine Liberation Organization leader) Yasir Arafat,” he said. “All these are friends of the ANC.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
