Date Released: Mon, 18 March 2013 08:51 +0200

I AM prompted by Brendan Boyle’s remarks (DD, February 20) on Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi, the president of the Inkatha Freedom Party. The article was about Dr Mamphela Ramphele’s move to establish a political party.

He roped Buthelezi in by stating “across the aisle Mangosuthu Buthelezi has kept an iron grip on his fading party. . .”

Firstly, I am not Buthelezi’s spokesperson, but I follow regularly unfolding events through his daily journal and keep newspaper cuttings and interview individuals from time to time.

It is from my perspective unfair for Boyle to conclude that Buthelezi is clinging to power. On March 1 2006, the IFP did not perform well in the local government elections. Many journalists and analysts called for Buthelezi’s immediate resignation.

Buthelezi asked for an IFP special conference. It was held on April 8 that year. In his address he reminded the IFP members and delegates about the challenges ahead and of Inkatha’s role as one of the major players in the political scene.

He told them without hesitation he would step down whenever the party wanted him to do so. Most members and leaders exonerated him of responsibility for the party’s poor results and applauded his principled and exemplary leadership and excellent work ethic.

In fact, Buthelezi has stepped down before. On July 24 2004, when Dr Ziba Jiyane was elected national chairman, Buthelezi resigned and asked candidates to contest for his position, although his term of office was not yet over. But he was unanimously re-elected.

The IFP decision-making body (the national council) which acts on behalf of the members has requested him countless times not to step down until they find a successor. This has not happened as quickly as Buthelezi yearns for.

It is not true at all that Buthelezi is “clinging to power” as many “experts” claim. The IFP leader has never seen Inkatha as his personal fiefdom. The mature politician that he is, he was optimistic the IFP conference of December 15 last year would release him.

The recent conference using a roadmap drafted by its former secretary-general Musa Zondi requested Buthelezi to wait and “hang on there” while they got their act together for a smooth transition.

Buthelezi is ready to step down and had never seen the IFP as a platform for self-aggrandisement. He established it to champion the causes of social justice and inequality and to bring genuine reconciliation among South African citizens.

It is a fact that there is an ongoing effort to wipe him off the political map and sweep under the carpet his sterling contribution to liberation just because he did not believe in shortcuts, armed struggle and disinvestment as solutions to massive problems which were, and which still face us as a country.

People need to be reminded Buthelezi fought for the unconditional release of Nelson Mandela and the unbanning of all liberation movements when people could not even whisper Mandela’s name.

Buthelezi quoted Madiba’s book The Struggle Is My Life when it was not fashionable to do so. He did not go the independence route as did Charles and Lennox Sebe, or Kaizer and George Matanzima, in Ciskei and Transkei.

The late ANC leader Oliver Tambo used to say publicly that “Buthelezi has never been a sell-out and the real ones are my Xhosa brothers who opted for independence.

“Buthelezi kept alive and intact the ideology and hallowed values of the founding fathers of the African National Congress in the hearts and minds of all black South Africans when it was not an easy option to go that route.

He did not participate in any negotiations about the future of this country as he stated that while other leaders were in jail and exile, there was a need “to unshackle the shackles of democracy”.

He boycotted the presidential council introduced by former State President PW Botha. He did not go for the tricameral parliament which introduced Indians and coloureds into parliamentary structures through the back door instead of the ballot paper. He was against these moves because most leaders were in exile and behind bars.

As the Latin saying goes Audi alteram partem – the other side needs to be heard. Boyle should interview Buthelezi or invite him to the newspaper’s dialogues and reveal to us the reasons behind the delay in his stepping down.

Gavin Relly, former chairman of Anglo American, was spot on when he said in 1986: “I think history, if reasonably and objectively written, will endorse the fact that (Buthelezi) was the anvil on which apartheid ultimately faltered.

However, who will write the history?” — Themba J Nkosi, Rhodes University postgraduate village

Picture source: Polity.org.za

Source: Daily Dispatch