Blacks Killing Blacks Over How Best to End Apartheid

PIETERMARITZBURG, South Africa â€”  Almost every morning these days, the bodies surface in the knee-deep weeds or next to the crooked muddy roads in the black townships.

Every night the people lie awake in their earthen homes, listening for the slogans or the mad shouts or the sounds of breaking glass that mean trouble.

One day this week, for example, policemen found a body with knife wounds shortly after dawn, two men were stabbed to death by a chanting gang and then two homes were set afire by homemade gasoline bombs heaved by a youthful war party.

That same afternoon, the Welcome Church had a funeral for 10-year-old Skumbuza Shezi, who had been dragged out of his house by a mob the week before, beheaded with an ax and left in a ditch. And on Thursday, a 16-year-old youth was killed in the clash of two groups armed with machetes and knives in Sinating township, police reported.

There are no spoils in the bloody, fiery war being waged by rival anti-apartheid groups on the green hillsides around Pietermaritzburg. This is now the seat of most South African unrest, and the conflict has escalated in recent days, a reminder of the deep divisions between moderate and radical blacks across this country.

Youth gangs armed with handmade spears, stones, wooden clubs, machetes, gasoline bombs and sometimes guns roam the streets of the townships. Hundreds of families leave their homes at night to sleep with friends or under bridges. Even students studying in their classrooms have become targets.

At least 60 people have died in political violence here in the past two months, 10 so far this week, according to the police tally. Relief organizations and church groups working here say the toll may be much higher.

The authorities have stepped up their efforts in the townships, arresting 359 people in the past 10 days, adding round-the-clock patrols and keeping a helicopter overhead at night with a wagging searchlight.

‘Sleepy Hollow’

About half a million people live in a dozen predominantly Zulu black townships that cascade down scenic slopes on the southwest edge of Pietermaritzburg, a quiet white farming community folks long ago nicknamed “Sleepy Hollow.� For more than two years, however, its townships have been torn apart by violence.

The source is a blood feud between young militant blacks affiliated with the United Democratic Front, the country’s largest legal anti-apartheid group, and the Inkatha movement, a locally powerful and more conservative organization headed by Zulu Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi.

Both oppose apartheid, South Africa’s system of racial segregation, but they disagree on strategy. The UDF favors sanctions and disinvestment as weapons against apartheid, while Inkatha opposes those methods.

Inkatha’s leadership more strongly opposes anti-government violence, while some factions of the UDF, a national coalition of about 700 anti-apartheid groups, are sympathetic toward the outlawed African National Congress, which is conducting an armed struggle to overthrow the Pretoria regime.

Harm to Movement

The warring has hurt the anti-apartheid movement by reinforcing the belief of some white government officials that South Africa would be destroyed by tribal and political feuding if the country’s black majority were allowed to vote.

However, Peter Kerchhoff of the Pietermaritzburg Agency for Christian Social Awareness blames the fighting on the “enormous anger, frustration and despair� among young blacks in the townships.

“It is apartheid that has created our sick society and divided us from each other,� he said not long ago.

In recent days, plans have been made for negotiations between the two groups. White and black businessmen, politicians and church leaders are seeking to mediate between the factions. Desmond Tutu, the Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, announced plans Friday to travel here and conduct a Sunday prayer meeting in the Edendale township to call for peace.

But previous calls by UDF and Inkatha leaders for an end to the violence have gone unheeded. It has grown increasingly apparent that the gangs of teen-agers operating in the townships are out of touch with their leadership.

Night Is Roughest Time

Night is the roughest time in the townships. Businesses in Pietermaritzburg have been letting their black employees leave work early so they can avoid the roadblocks that Inkatha and UDF gangs set up after nightfall.

The local newspaper, The Natal Witness, apologized to its readers on the front page this week for late deliveries.

“Township unrest is preventing some of our staff from reporting for duty at night,� the paper said.

Gangs of young “comrades� from the UDF and young “vigilantes� from Inkatha, in numbers ranging from a few to two dozen or more, have attacked homes in search of sympathizers for the other side.

More than 100 homes have been severely damaged by such attacks. A mob in Sinating township, for example, stoned a man’s house Wednesday night, then dragged him out and stabbed him to death.

Townships have been divided up, both by Inkatha and UDF, and people suspected of supporting the “wrong side� have been killed while walking through these areas.

Some neighborhoods have formed themselves into “defense units,� where several families gather in one house to sleep while the oldest children take turns keeping watch for intruders. Others have left the areas altogether.

Mhabuhlamgeme Madlala, 73, sent his wife and six children away to live with friends this week after one son, Robert, 15, was stabbed to death by a gang that invaded his school classroom.

Now the elder Madlala spends his nights alone in the family home. Only a few days after his son’s death, a mob came to one of his neighbors’ houses just before dawn and killed two political opponents.

“You feel you are a target just being here,� Madlala said. “But I am old now. I cannot run.�

Madlala, like many in the townships, sleeps fitfully if at all. Some residents say they can sleep only when they hear the police helicopter overhead.

Ntombi Kumalo’s 16-year-old son, Simon, and his friends--all UDF comrades--take turns standing guard outside the family’s three-room mud home near a railroad track in the Edendale township. They carry knobkerries, short wooden clubs with a rough ball carved at one end. They communicate with whistles.

Simon’s father is away, working at a cotton factory, and the young man is the oldest of five children. His attitude is typical of the youngsters on both sides who have taken over these townships--distrustful of the police, angry at the rival black group and willing to take the law into his own hands.

“We are protecting ourselves,� he said. “If you want your family protected, you must join the comrades.�

Both Sides Blame the Other

Leaders of Inkatha, which claims 1.2 million members, and the UDF, which claims 3 million, both say they deplore the violence. Each blames the clashes on the other; each says the police helps the other, and each says its young members are merely defending themselves against aggression.

“What has been happening is that Inkatha is increasing membership and the UDF is getting jealous,� said Vitus Mvelase, one of the local leaders of Inkatha. “They are trying to scare people away from joining us.�

Both sides are willing to negotiate an end to the trouble. But the UDF has been hampered by substantial pressure from the authorities. Most of its leaders have been detained or are in hiding, and the group says it has borne the brunt of the 16-month-old state of emergency crackdown on political activities.

“We cannot reach the township folk and tell them that we want to negotiate,� said Appiah Chetty, a UDF official in the region. “It is just too hard and dangerous to get them. Everything is working against us.�

Times researcher Michael Cadman contributed to this article.