'I convinced FW to release Mandela,' says Buthelezi

Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande’s attacks fly in the face of historical facts, writes Mangosuthu Buthelezi

I seem to have ruffled the feathers of Minister of Higher Education and Training Blade Nzimande.

During the state of the nation debate, I highlighted a flaw in the programme of radical economic transformation: it is completely reliant on rearranging the little that exists, moving it from one group to another.

Education, I said, remains the only way to build a future of opportunity, development, stability and hope. It is how we will transform this country into a land of plenty for all, rather than a land where a shrinking resource base is simply redistributed, laying the foundation for a new cycle of poverty, hunger and despair.

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Not so, said Minister Blade Nzimande. Writing in the Sunday Times, he lionised radical economic transformation as the only solution. In a piece peppered with socialist standards like "imperialism", "white monopoly capital" and "the parasitic bourgeoisie", he sang the praises of his late mentor, Jabulani "Mzala" Nxumalo.

I know I've touched a nerve when Nzimande pulls out Mzala. From time to time, usually just before an election, Nzimande refers to Mzala's notorious anti-Buthelezi propaganda tract, Gatsha Buthelezi: Chief with a Double Agenda penned in the 1980s at the height of the ANC's vilification campaign against me.

But he pretends it was a genuine academic dissertation.

When the 19-year-old Mzala went into exile, he began devouring propaganda texts of the ANC, SACP and communist leaders. He proved an excellent candidate for indoctrination and, at 22, was sent for "advanced ideological training".

Soon he was working in Tanzania for the ANC's Radio Freedom, which habitually demonised me and Inkatha, warning that the ANC was "coming with bazookas" to deal with me.

Radio Freedom and Sechaba, for which Mzala wrote, were key platforms through which I was attacked.

The reason for this vicious animosity was an ideological split between Inkatha and the ANC, in 1979. Inkatha refused to embrace an armed struggle and rejected the call for sanctions and disinvestment. Our commitment to nonviolence and negotiations were an obstacle to the ANC strategy of making the country ungovernable.

In their anger, I was painted an enemy of the people. They sought to isolate me from my support base; to silence the voice of nonviolent struggle.

Years later, in 2002, Nelson Mandela spoke of their campaign against me.

He admitted, "We have used every ammunition to destroy [Buthelezi], but we failed. And he is still there. He is a formidable survivor. We cannot ignore him."

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The indoctrinated Mzala was doing his job well. By 1988, he had published his own propaganda tract claiming that Inkatha and I were collaborating with the apartheid regime. He died three years later.

By now, time and truth have discredited the lies. But Minister Nzimande has still not accepted that there is a difference between propaganda and facts. He still idealises Mzala, believing that his poison propaganda has merit, even now.

I wonder: how does he account for the many facts that undermine Mzala's fiction?

If my liberation credentials were ever in doubt, why was I so warmly received by African heads of state? I was welcomed by president Julius Nyerere in Tanzania, where Mzala worked. I was received by president Kenneth Kaunda in Zambia, by president Olusegun Obasanjo in Nigeria, by the King of Swaziland and the King of Lesotho.

I was a guest of president Hastings Banda at the celebration of Malawi's independence.

I attended the Africa-American Dialogue Series in Ethiopia, where I met His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Haile Selassie. In Liberia, president William Tolbert bestowed on me a National Order, Knight Commander of the Star of Africa.

block_quotes_start We have used every ammunition to destroy [Buthelezi], but we failed. And he is still there. He is a formidable survivor. We cannot ignore him

Internationally, I was welcomed by prime minister Margaret Thatcher, by US presidents Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George Bush, by chancellor Helmut Kohl in Germany and prime minister Joop Den Uyl in Holland.

In 1976, on the day that Transkei took independence, I was in Lagos on the invitation of Obasanjo.

He had sent plane tickets for me, my wife and two aides, so that I could avoid attending the bogus independence ceremony.

As a member of the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group, he had been allowed to visit Mandela on Robben Island. When he asked about me, Mandela said: "Buthelezi is a freedom fighter in his own right." This prompted Obasanjo to support me.

When Mozambique's president Joaquim Chissano heard my condemnation of apartheid, he asked Oliver Tambo who I was. Tambo told him: "That is our man."

When Inkosi Albert Luthuli died, I was asked to deliver the funeral oration, and when the former Organisation of African Unity invited his widow to Maseru to receive her husband's posthumous award, she asked me to accompany her and speak on behalf of South Africa's people. Later Mama Luthuli joined Inkatha.

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Indeed many leaders in the ANC, like Stalwart Simelane, Joshua Zulu and Wordsworth Luthuli, joined Inkatha when they left Robben Island because Mandela instructed that they work with Buthelezi.

For years Inkatha was considered a front for the ANC, to the extent that it was Inkatha that placed a memorial stone on the grave of Dr Pixley ka Isaka Seme, the founder of the ANC.

Mandela himself refused to sever relations with me, for he knew the truth that I was working to undermine the system from within on the instruction of Tambo and Luthuli.

We continued to correspond throughout his incarceration, and some of our letters are published in his own book, Conversations with Myself.

If I was such a sell-out as Mzala claimed, why did Winnie Madikizela-Mandela write in 491 Days: "Buthelezi ... was one of the greatest fighters in his day ... He was entrusted with fighting the system from within. And that is what people do not know."

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Should we believe this great cloud of witnesses, or a piece of propaganda from the '80s ?

History shows that I held more rallies under the banner "Free Mandela" than anyone else in South Africa. At his first rally in Durban, after his release, Mandela publicly thanked me for all I had done.

Indeed, in February 1990, when President FW de Klerk announced his decision to release Mandela, he admitted that I had convinced him to do it.

By refusing bilateral negotiations, I had brought everyone to the negotiating table.

The record stands for those willing to read it. Even my verbatim conversation with apartheid's minister of justice and police, Jimmy Kruger.

My contribution to the liberation struggle has been recognised time and again.

One of our oldest liberal universities, the University of Cape Town, conferred on me an unsolicited honorary doctorate. So did the University of Zululand, where Mzala was studying law. Boston University, the alma mater of Dr Martin Luther King, joined two more American universities, who did the same.

In the very year Mzala published his nonsense, I received the Magna Award for Outstanding Leadership. How does Nzimande explain these things?

How does he explain Mandela entrusting me with the country at the first opportunity?

On the very first occasion that he and his deputy were absent from South Africa, Mandela appointed me acting president.

He did so again many times, as did Mbeki.

In 1999, Mbeki sought to appoint me deputy president. But it was torpedoed by ANC leaders in KwaZulu-Natal. They, more than anyone, have continued to demonise me.

So I am hardly surprised by Nzimande's attacks.

But I challenge him to explain away the facts of history.

Gatsha Buthelezi: Chief with a Double Agenda is Jabulani 'Mzala' Nxumalo's notorious anti-Buthelezi book