Dear friends and fellow South Africans,
On Sunday hundreds of mourners gathered to pay their last respects to IFP Councillor Themba Xulu, who was kidnapped in KwaMashu by five men posing as police officers, and brutally murdered. Our Party spent the day in prayer, praying that peace would abide and the senseless violence would come to an end.
The latest spate of political violence, which has claimed lives within the IFP, ANC and NFP, brought together the leadership of our parties in a united cry for peace.
The NFP's Professor Nhlanhla Khubisa led a delegation of the NFP to meet with the ANC MEC for Transport, Community Safety and Liaison in KwaZulu Natal, the Hon. Mr Willies Mchunu, asking that hostels be swept for arms caches. The NFP delegation expressed its Party's commitment to peace and the end of violence.
We were therefore shocked when a member of this same delegation attended a court appearance yesterday of NFP members who are on trial for murder and attempted murder, and, in broad daylight, in front of the media and police, took out a gun and shot dead the IFP's Siyanda Dlamini.
This brazen act of murder contradicts all the NFP has said about deploring violence. This is not a case of the leadership calling for peace while members on the ground struggle to forgo vengeance killings. This is a case of the leadership calling for peace, then taking out a gun and committing murder. The message to people on the ground is clear, and it contradicts the message expressed to the media.
While the NFP claims to be working closely with the MEC and the National Commissioner of Police, and continually implores the justice system to deal with perpetrators of political violence, yesterday's murder shows total disrespect for the police and the courts. It almost seems like revenge for NFP members being arrested.
Yesterday's court case was not for the murder of our IFP Councillor, but for the murder of the IFP's Celiwe Shezi who was gunned down by NFP members when she came to support the distraught Xulu family. Councillor Xulu was still missing at that stage and we had hope that he would be returned alive.
The following day, when his body was found riddled with bullets, the IFP called for calm. Then the IFP's Bongani Lushaba was murdered. In the midst of our great distress, we entreated everyone in KwaMashu to reject violence and the terrible cycle of retaliation. We asked that the bloodshed be arrested.
I attended Councillor Xulu's memorial service last Thursday and brought the same message I have taken to IFP funerals for the last three decades. I implored that violence cannot be quelled with violence, bloodshed cannot be stopped with bloodshed. The rule of law must replace this despicable rule of violence.
But I also took the opportunity to challenge leaders from all parties to engage in a moment of introspection and honestly determine whether there is blood on their hands. The NFP is constantly accusing me of fomenting violence with what they call my "irresponsible utterances" over the genesis of the NFP, and the depth of the coalition between the NFP and the ANC.
But why is it irresponsible to speak the truth, just because the truth is unpalatable to some who would prefer certain facts not to be mentioned? Did Christ not say that the truth would set us free? I have examined my heart and my hands many times over my long political career, and my conscience is clear. I abhor violence. The entire legacy of the IFP is centered on our rejection of violence as a tool to engineer an outcome.
Thus my words have always been words of peace and warning. My call has been for calm and justice. Regardless of how angry I may become at the senseless murder of IFP supporters, and regardless of how much anguish I feel, I have never deviated from my message of peace. Because in the depths of my heart, I believe in peace, and from the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.
It is therefore worrying to see the NFP's President spitting fire when NFP members are arrested, declaring their innocence before they have been tried in a court of law. It is also worrying to see the NFP's Secretary General talking about his delegation doing everything possible to pursue peace, when a member of that delegation pulls a gun outside a court and shoots to kill.
Equally concerning are the fiery words spoken by ANC MEC, Willies Mchunu, who chairs the KwaZulu Natal Multi-Party Committee against political violence.
During a sod-turning ceremony in Estcourt two weeks ago, which was attended by IFP and NFP Councillors, Mr Mchunu reportedly accused opposition parties of killing an ANC Councillor in order to "steal" a municipality. He assured them the ANC is not scared of such "nobodies" and pointed out how the ANC had killed the Boers who, he explained, were a stronger enemy than the current opposition. "We did not kill you," he reportedly said, "because you are fellow black South Africans."
The sod-turning ceremony had deliberately been moved to a ward where by-elections were about to take place. Thus it is not clear whether the MEC was using the issue of political violence to canvass for votes, or whether he simply lost his temper. As he puts it, "I spoke strongly..."
But his words were aimed "against the present manoeuvres by certain people to deal a deadly blow to the ANC-NFP working agreement." Mr Mchunu explained, "I was at the forefront during the negotiations towards the agreement and it must be protected by all means."
The agreement he refers to is the coalition agreement between the NFP and ANC which enabled them to take control of 19 hung municipalities after the Local Government Elections last year.
During the low intensity People's War of the eighties and early nineties, we used to call this kind of talk "killing talk".
There is a connection between the NFP-IFP political violence over the past year and the ANC-IFP violence that raged for a decade before liberation and never quite abated, because reconciliation efforts were continually scuppered or ignored, before being completely abandoned under the present ANC leadership.
When we speak about the culture of violence brought in by the ANC's People's War, we are not inciting violence. We are stating fact. When we speak about a connection between the NFP and the ANC, we are not inciting violence. We are, again, stating fact. And when an NFP leader kills an IFP member in cold blood, in front of the police, it is not because the IFP keeps stating the facts, but because a leadership's verbal commitment to peace clearly does not come from the heart.
I am not accusing anyone of anything outside of what is evident from the facts. My deep concern is that political violence will continue if the message from political leaders is contradictory, muddied or disputed by the evidence. The IFP does not believe in using political violence as a tool to engineer an outcome. We believe in honest, good faith, negotiations, and our continual cry is for peace.
So I ask again, in the wake of another murder, that the bloodshed would end and that political leaders would look at their hearts and hands to ensure that we are not the obstacles to peace. We must be held to a higher standard of integrity, for our words influence lives. In KwaZulu Natal, we have seen words bring death. So let us be careful what we say, and let our words match our actions.
On behalf of the IFP, I express our deep sympathy to the Dlamini family, to the Shezi family, the Lushaba family and the Xulu family. Their pain is the same pain borne by more than 400 families of IFP leaders and office bearers whose murders have never been solved. It is the same pain felt by all families of political violence, whether they are IFP, ANC or NFP. I urge us all to look beyond the political divides and recognise the shared human suffering that this violence is causing. Let the bloodshed stop.
Yours in the service of our nation,
Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi MP
Issued by the IFP, October 16 2012
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