Bar Makhanya from writing about his old foe

Mario Oriani-Ambrosini: In June, Mondli Makhanya wrote a column, "Let us make this World Cup a tribute to the wisdom of Madiba", in which he recalled the first rally held by Mandela in Durban. From there he launched an absurd attack on Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi and Inkatha.

I came to South Africa in 1991 after Mandela's release. Since June 1992, I have been close to Buthelezi. As his cabinet adviser for 10 years, I was involved in the TRC process which we challenged as hopeless in understanding and reconciling the dynamics of the black-on-black conflicts which claimed the lives of about 20000 people. I had to study the relevant evidence.

From this background, I cannot fathom Makhanya's distortion of the Inkatha-ANC conflict. I appreciate that both the world and South Africa need reassuring heroes and myths and that Mandela lent himself to such a purpose beautifully. But Makhanya's preposterous demonisation of Buthelezi and Inkatha to sanctify Mandela as the pacifier is too far-fetched even for the anti-Buthelezi, now fully discredited, vitriolic propaganda of 25 years ago, which Mandela was the first to repudiate as untrue when, on innumerable occasions, he praised Buthelezi's lifelong role.

Anthea Jeffery has written the definitive academic account of the ANC-Inkatha conflict in her tome People's War, which describes how the ANC's "armed struggle", fuelled by Soviet weapons and foreign money, was mainly waged not against the white apartheid regime, but rather against all the other components of the liberation movement, including Azapo, the PAC and Inkatha.

A Soviet-influenced ANC elite in comfortable foreign exile and an uninformed group of prisoners presided over massive and ferocious violence aimed at subjugating black communities into allegiance, not so much to fight apartheid, but rather to acquire political hegemony during the struggle and after liberation, in spite of the ANC having no significant own structures on the ground. The horrifying internationally broadcast images of "necklaced" people with burning tyres wired through their ribcage had nothing to do with apartheid, but was the ANC's way to intimidate communities into joining its "armed struggle", which worked well across the country, but not in KwaZulu.

In KwaZulu, Buthelezi chose to have nothing to do with this Soviet-backed insurrectional armed struggle, and pursued a strategy of nonviolent resistance to apartheid, advocating the very method of peaceful negotiations which eventually delivered liberation, and which the ANC had to accept once its Soviet sponsor collapsed. Buthelezi was the credible counterpart for the Western governments of Reagan, Kohl, Thatcher, Giscard d'Estaing and Andreotti, who sought a non-Soviet-backed liberation of South Africa.

Buthelezi crashed apartheid by keeping the largest nation out of it, and making it unworkable, as FW de Klerk recognised when he announced its dismantling. Buthelezi held more rallies than anyone to free Mandela and refused apartheid's offers to negotiate bilaterally a democratic constitution in terms of which the ANC would be unbanned and democratic elections held, which would have made Buthelezi the liberator rather than Mandela. This has been recognised by President Zuma and Deputy President Motlanthe and is on record in parliament.

These are the facts of history. Where does Makhanya's aberration come from? Jeffery answers: "One black journalist, Mondli Makhanya ... actively participated in a key aspect of the people's war. Makhanya came from KwaMashu and supported the ANC's internal ally, the United Democratic Front, in the conflict with Inkatha. Writing in 1991 under a pseudonym, Makhanya described his own participation in an incident on the 11th of February 1990 (the day Mandela was released from prison) in which an approaching Inkatha 'impi' was repulsed and the IFP was then routed from a nearby shack settlement.

"According to Makhanya, 'the young (ANC) lions then helped themselves to radios and other valuables left behind', before setting (IFP) shacks ablaze. Makhanya himself concentrated on 'burning shacks' while other youths 'finished off wounded Inkatha warriors', one of whom had his eyes gouged out and his genitals cut off while Makhanya looked on. One injured Inkatha man was dragged down to the township and set alight, and then had rubble piled on him to prevent his escape.

"Wrote Makhanya: 'to me he was not a human being - he was an enemy who deserved what he got.' Looking back on his experience 'as a warrior' in Natal, Makhanya added: 'Nauseating as it all was, I was proud to be a part of it ... I must also admit that I enjoyed the excitement of battle: the sight of a sea of burning shacks and desperate men running for dear life.'

"Makhanya's account suggests that his capacity for objective assessment and reporting might have been eroded via his involvement in the fighting."

Mandela would be horrified. Makhanya has written an avalanche of preposterous attacks on Buthelezi. To preserve its credibility, your paper should bar him from writing about Buthelezi.