KZN was no bantustan
It’s one thing to hate me. It’s another to lie about me in a national newspaper. In his article titled “State, amakhosi and residents at odds over tribal land” (January 26) Paddy Harper writes: “Buthelezi signed off on the Ingonyama Trust Act as the then KwaZulu-Natal bantustan chief minister …”
But there was no such thing as a “KwaZulu-Natal bantustan”. It has never existed.
KwaZulu-Natal never became a bantustan because we never accepted independence. That explains why, unlike Transkei, Ciskei, Venda and others, KwaZuluNatal never had its own military or passports. Because I refused to convert what was left of the Zulu kingdom into a bantustan, Pretoria retaliated by denying KwaZuluNatal the right to establish an army.
Moreover, former president FW de Klerk admitted at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that they [the National Party] abandoned the grand scheme of apartheid because of my rejection of independence.
No matter how often Harper repeats the lie, I was never a bantustan leader.
My participation in the homelands system, which was foisted on us, was at the behest of Inkosi Albert Luthuli and Oliver Tambo. At the unveiling of Tambo’s tombstone, ANC leader Cleopas Nsibande revealed — in the presence of Nelson Mandela, members of the Cabinet and the ANC’s leadership — that Tambo and Luthuli had sent him to my sister with an urgent message.
They asked that if the Zulu people were finally dragooned into participating in the homelands system, and elected me to lead, I should take up the position, for in this way we could undermine apartheid from within.
Then deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe reiterated this fact at Nsibande’s funeral, adding that Nsibande had frequently come to Luthuli House imploring his leaders to reconcile with me, because he knew that I had participated in the homelands system on the ANC’s instruction.
I worked closely with Tambo for years, until an ideological split in 1979 when Inkatha Freedom Party refused to participate in the armed struggle or support the call for economic sanctions.
Even after this, Mandela and I continued to correspond, and when he became president he appointed me acting president at the first opportunity. If I were the man Harper portrays, why would Mandela have done that?
Harper’s lies are not rational. But they mislead those who don’t know the facts.
Why should he get away with it?