Mthombothi has strung together a tissue of lies about my political career
For decades Barney Mthombothi has made ex cathedra statements, posturing as a custodian of free speech. Yet he resists the basic principle of audi alteram partem, which would reveal his deep dishonesty. Pretending to report on my address to the IFP’s national conference, he has strung together a tissue of lies about my political career (“Little remorse or candour as Buthelezi steps down from IFP hot seat after a career of double dealing”, Sunday Times, September 1).
He starts with “the erstwhile KwaZulu bantustan”. How many times must it be said? I never took independence. The territory named KwaZulu, on which the apartheid regime wanted to inflict bantustan status, never became a bantustan.
Instead, through the Buthelezi Commission and the KwaZulu/Natal Indaba, I gathered people of all races and we birthed the KwaZulu Natal Joint Executive Authority. It was SA’s first nonracial, nondiscriminatory government, long before democracy, giving the example of how it could be done.
Because KwaZulu was not a bantustan, we in KwaZulu remained
South African citizens, entitled to South African passports. On the contrary, in the territories that had accepted bantustan status, Africans could not travel abroad because their passports were not recognised. To assist them, we created the KwaZulu Citizenship Certificate. Once they had that, they could access South African passports.
Yet Mthombothi claims that my refusal to take independence for KwaZulu is irrelevant. Tell that to the millions of black South Africans who would have lost citizenship of their own country. Tell it to the millions who were trapped inside the bantustans.
Mthombothi has sidestepped large chunks of history to conjure his porous arguments. Absurdly, much of that history was contained in my speech. Yet he forces me to restate the facts.
At the unveiling of Oliver Tambo’s tombstone, ANC leader Cleopas Nsibande publicly revealed that he was sent by Tambo and Albert Luthuli to my sister, to convey their message to me as an ANC cadre. They asked that, if the people elected me, I should accept leadership of KwaZulu, despite our opposition to the homelands policy. In that way, I could torpedo the system from within.
On February 21 2019, former Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda stated on the record: “I and other leaders of the frontline states, together with comrade Oliver Tambo of the ANC, were convinced that you should take up a new role in the organisation … When you visited in 1974 you were encouraged to go back to Apartheid South Africa and form a membership-based organisation …”
The PAC asked me to speak at Robert Sobukwe’s funeral. When thugs made an attempt on my life there, the PAC apologised. Years later I was invited to speak at the unveiling of Sobukwe’s tombstone.
It’s not hearsay that the ANC turned against me. In 2002
Nelson Mandela revealed: “We used every ammunition to destroy [Buthelezi], but we failed. And he is still there. He is a formidable survivor. We cannot ignore him.” The ANC’s top leadership learnt in Vietnam how to wage a people’s war, and it was turned against Inkatha.
I supported workers during the 1973 strike in Durban, for which I was attacked by the minister of labour, Marais Viljoen. Because Durban was outside KwaZulu, Viljoen said I should not interfere. But I did. I was already running an institute for industrial workers in Durban with Professor Lawrence Schlemmer. For this work the largest American trade union gave me the George Meany Human Rights Award. Barney Dladla was expelled from the cabinet by the Assembly of Representatives when he unilaterally decided to work from home, taking his office furniture with him. Sibusiso Bengu accepted a job from the World Lutheran Federation in Geneva. He wasn’t expelled for “sticking with students”.
Mthombothi questions my involvement with Cosag [the Concerned South African Group], but ignores the precipitating agreement between the ANC and the founders of apartheid that anything they agreed upon was now “sufficient consensus”.
Why should some be allowed to come to the negotiating table, but not others? How could that bring democracy? I had refused bilateral negotiations with the National Party, forcing the release of Mandela and all political prisoners. I believed we all had a place around the table, including the king.
Testifying before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, former president FW de Klerk admitted it was my obstruction of the grandiose plan to balkanise SA which forced them to abandon it.
Finally, Mthombothi compares me to presidents and prime ministers. I should be flattered that he feels I’m no ordinary politician. But even flattery — from a lying tongue — is poison.