TRC Final Report

Volume 5

Chapter 6

Subsection 15

117 The above incidents represent iconic events over the past twelve years in which IFP office-bearers, members and supporters were involved in acts of serious political violence. They do not purport to be a complete list of such incidents. However, the most devastating indictment of the role of the IFP in political violence during the Commission’s mandate period is to be found in the statistics compiled by the Commission directly from submissions by victims of gross human rights violations. These established the IFP as the foremost perpetrator of gross human rights violations in KwaZulu and Natal during the 1990–94 period. Indeed, IFP violations constituted almost 50 per cent of all violations reported to the Commission’s Durban office for this period, and over one-third of the total number of gross human rights violations committed during the thirty-four-year period of the Commission’s mandate. The statistics also indicate that IFP members, supporters and office-bearers in KwaZulu and Natal were responsible for more than 55 per cent of all violations reported to the Commission’s Durban office for the period between July 1993 and May 1994.

118 Other statistics derived from the Commission’s database show that Inkatha/the IFP was responsible, in the mandate period, for some 3 800 killings in the Natal and KwaZulu area compared with approximately 1 100 attributed to the ANC and some 700 to the SAP. The IFP remains the major perpetrator of killings on a national scale, being allegedly responsible for over 4 500 killings compared to 2 700 attributed to the SAP and 1 300 to the ANC. These statistics suggest that the IFP was responsible for approximately 3.5 killings for every one killing attributed to the ANC. A graph included in the Natal regional profile (Volume Three) illustrates that in 1987–88 the IFP exceeded even the SAP in terms of numbers of people killed by a single perpetrator organisation.

119 It must be noted here that, for much of the period in which the Commission was able to accept human rights violations statements, the IFP discouraged its members and supporters from making submissions to the Commission. The result is that only about 10 per cent of all statements taken in KwaZulu-Natal came from people linked to the IFP. The significant point is that the statistics derived from the Commission’s database do not diverge from those published by other national and international bodies. All of these are consistent in identifying the IFP as the primary non-state perpetrator of gross human rights abuse in South Africa from the latter 1980s through to 1994.

120 The description of the KwaZulu government and the IFP as state allies derives largely from the covert collaboration of senior Inkatha/IFP office-bearers with senior members of the SAP Security Branch and SADF Military Intelligence. This factor distinguished the IFP from other homeland-based perpetrators, particularly in the 1990s. At a time when it portrayed itself nationally and abroad as a liberation movement, the IFP, through the intervention of its senior members, was receiving direct financial and logistical assistance from the highest echelons of the apartheid state’s security apparatus. Evidence before the Commission indicates that Inkatha’s opposition to the South African government’s policies had changed to covert collaboration by the latter half of the 1980s, and the two had united against a common enemy, the UDF/ANC and their affiliates.

121 The formal finding of the Commission in regard to the IFP is set out below:

DURING THE PERIOD 1982–94, THE INKATHA FREEDOM PARTY, KNOWN AS INKATHA PRIOR TO JULY 1990 (HEREINAFTER REFERRED TO AS “THE ORGANISATION”) WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR GROSS VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTED IN THE FORMER TRANSVAAL, NATAL AND KWAZULU AGAINST :

PERSONS WHO WERE PERCEIVED TO BE LEADERS, MEMBERS OR SUPPORTERS OF THE UDF, ANC, SOUTH AFRICAN COMMUNIST PARTY (SACP) AND COSATU;

PERSONS WHO WERE IDENTIFIED AS POSING A THREAT TO THE ORGANISATION;

MEMBERS OR SUPPORTERS OF THE ORGANISATION WHOSE LOYALTY WAS DOUBTED.

IT IS A FURTHER FINDING OF THE COMMISSION THAT SUCH VIOLATIONS FORMED PART OF A SYSTEMATIC PATTERN OF ABUSE WHICH ENTAILED DELIBERATE PLANNING ON THE PART OF THE ORGANISATION.

THE COMMISSION BASED THIS FINDING ON THE FOLLOWING ACTIONS OF THE IFP:

SPEECHES BY THE IFP PRESIDENT, SENIOR PARTY OFFICIALS AND PERSONS ALIGNED TO THE ORGANISATION’S IDEOLOGY, WHICH HAD THE EFFECT OF INCITING SUPPORTERS OF THE ORGANISATION TO COMMIT ACTS OF VIOLENCE;

ARMING THE ORGANISATION’S SUPPORTERS WITH WEAPONS IN CONTRAVENTION OF THE ARMS AND AMMUNITION, AND EXPLOSIVES AND DANGEROUS WEAPONS ACTS;

MASS ATTACKS BY SUPPORTERS OF THE ORGANISATION ON COMMUNITIES INHABITED BY PERSONS REFERRED TO ABOVE, RESULTING IN DEATH AND INJURY AND THE DESTRUCTION AND THEFT OF PROPERTY;

KILLING OF LEADERS OF THE POLITICAL ORGANISATIONS AND PERSONS REFERRED TO ABOVE;

COLLUSION WITH THE SOUTH AFRICAN GOVERNMENT’S SECURITY FORCES TO COMMIT THE VIOLATIONS REFERRED TO ABOVE;

ENTERING INTO A PACT WITH THE SADF TO CREATE A PARAMILITARY FORCE FOR THE ORGANISATION, WHICH WAS INTENDED TO AND DID CAUSE DEATH AND INJURY TO THE PERSONS REFERRED TO ABOVE;

ESTABLISHING HIT SQUADS WITHIN THE KZP AND THE SPECIAL CONSTABLE STRUCTURE OF THE SAP TO KILL OR CAUSE INJURY TO THE PERSONS REFERRED TO ABOVE;

UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE SELF-PROTECTION UNIT PROJECT, TRAINING LARGE NUMBERS OF THE ORGANISATION’S SUPPORTERS WITH THE SPECIFIC OBJECTIVE OF PREVENTING, BY MEANS OF VIOLENCE, THE HOLDING OF ELECTIONS IN KWAZULU-NATAL IN APRIL 1994, UNDER A CONSTITUTION WHICH DID NOT RECOGNISE THE ORGANISATION’S DEMANDS FOR SOVEREIGNTY. IN ORDER TO ACHIEVE THIS OBJECTIVE, THE KWAZULU GOVERNMENT AND ITS KWAZULU POLICE STRUCTURES WERE SUBVERTED;

CONSPIRING WITH RIGHT-WING ORGANISATIONS AND FORMER MEMBERS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN GOVERNMENT’S SECURITY FORCES TO COMMIT ACTS WHICH RESULTED IN LOSS OF LIFE OR INJURY IN ORDER TO ACHIEVE THE OBJECTIVE REFERRED TO ABOVE;

CREATING A CLIMATE OF IMPUNITY BY EXPRESSLY OR IMPLICITLY CONDONING GROSS HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS AND OTHER UNLAWFUL ACTS COMMITTED BY MEMBERS OR SUPPORTERS OF THE ORGANISATION.

CHIEF MG BUTHELEZI SERVED SIMULTANEOUSLY AS PRESIDENT OF THE IFP AND AS THE CHIEF MINISTER OF THE KWAZULU GOVERNMENT AND WAS THE ONLY SERVING MINISTER OF POLICE IN THE KWAZULU GOVERNMENT DURING THE ENTIRE THIRTEEN-YEAR EXISTENCE OF THE KWAZULU POLICE. WHERE THESE THREE AGENCIES ARE FOUND TO HAVE BEEN RESPONSIBLE FOR THE COMMISSION OF GROSS HUMAN RIGHTS, CHIEF MANGOSUTHU BUTHELEZI IS HELD BY THIS COMMISSION TO BE ACCOUNTABLE IN HIS REPRESENTATIVE CAPACITY AS THE LEADER, HEAD OR RESPONSIBLE MINISTER OF THE PARTIES CONCERNED.