Originally published in Inqaba ya Basebenzi No.26 (April 1988)

It wasn’t the first time (or the last) that peace talks with Inkatha collapsed. But what made headlines in the weeks before Christmas was that an “obscure document” (so the Sunday Star called it), unexpectedly introduced and denounced by Buthelezi, brought the talks to a sudden halt. The document was the October issue of Inqaba ya Basebenzi.

What enraged Buthelezi was that a publication “which clearly identifies itself with the UDF and Cosatu”[1] did not echo the UDF/Cosatu leaders’ calls for reconciliation – but attacked him and declared that Inkatha could and should be smashed.

It openly saluted the youth who had “begun to turn the tide against Gatsha and Inkatha’s reign of terror”. It drew on the experiences of workers who had successfully fought Uwusa, and proposed a strategy of armed defence and a vigorous social action campaign to destroy the counter-revolutionary gangs.

Now was the time, it said, “for Congress leaders to drive home the advantage, and go on a determined political offensive against Inkatha”. Peace talks now could only hamper Congress youth and workers, helping Inkatha to hold onto support.

Buthelezi demanded public repudiation of this by the Congress leadership.[2] Inkatha Youth Brigade chairman, Musa Zondi, whined: Inqaba “advocates methods to strike at Uwusa and ultimately to destroy Inkatha”.[3] “It is this desire for the annihilation of Inkatha which demands public repudiation,” Gatsha wrote.[4]

At once complying privately with Inkatha’s demand, the UDF/ Cosatu leaders shrank at first from doing so publicly. They said it could create a precedent whereby “Inkatha could produce other documents, even going as far as the Freedom Charter, which they also might want repudiated”.[5]

But after a week’s hesitation they gave in, actually paying for a full-page advertisement in the Natal Witness[6] dissociating themselves from Inqaba and saying “that the publication did not reflect our policies or views”.

UDF/Cosatu peace delegates at first told the press that Inqaba “had not been circulated in Pietermaritzburg”.[7] But the Financial Mail[8] reported that Inqaba was “distributed in the townships”.

Various learned commentators (closer to the circles of the leadership than to the embattled Congress rank-and-file) hastened to assure everybody that Inqaba was, after all, “irrelevant”.

Historian Tom Lodge – an “expert” evidently more in touch with the past than with the present – claimed that the journal and the tendency behind it were “not very significant”. Steven Friedman meanwhile gave his Worm’s Eye View that the Marxist Workers’ Tendency of the ANC has “very little influence on anti-apartheid politics within or outside the country”.[9]

But Buthelezi was having none of that. In a stream of letters and statements to the press he insisted that Inqaba represented a far from insignificant trend. To say otherwise, he said, gave “an entirely misleading slant to the facts of the matter…”

If your emphasis on the irrelevancy of the ‘Marxist Workers’ Tendency of the African National Congress’ is correct, then why did the UDF and Cosatu have difficulty in publicly repudiating the hideous views it expresses? Surely it would have been very easy for UDF and Cosatu to repudiate somebody you claim the ANC had thrown out?

The harsh reality is that the tendency reflected in the article which was presented for repudiation, is a tendency which is alive and well among core ANC National Executive members and activists. It is alive and well in factions of the UDF and Cosatu.[10]

Yes, this tendency is alive and well in Congress! But on the NEC? Does Gatsha know something we don’t? He certainly knows who his most dangerous enemies are.

He knows Inqaba’s policies, far from being “irrelevant”, precisely match the militancy of Congress ranks – not only in Natal but throughout SA.

That is why he demanded our repudiation. And that is why Inqaba could not remain “obscure”.

The repudiation by Congress leaders was a repudiation not just of ourselves, but of tens-of-thousands of Congress workers and youth. Upon them the future of this tendency, of Congress, and of the revolution rests.

UDF Natal Midlands Chairman A.S. Chetty described Inqaba as “a group of nuts”. But this is the response Inqaba received from Congress youth…

Dear comrades,

We are the comrades in PMB. We got a problem of Inkatha and State.

In Pietermaritzburg many comrades died because of Inkatha and the State.

So we need a support of your, by the sponcers, like money, material, something to defend ourselfs.

We have read the pamphlets, Inqaba ya Basebenzi. We feel glad to get some views from other comrades like you. All the views in the pamphlet is exactly what we need.

We got only the problem of Zulu Police (Zulu Popays), SAP, Inkatha, SADF. We will be very glad if this can be accepted.

And it will be easy to organise the community and the workers, youth as well. If we have the resources.

We are looking for support from the working class in the world.

Aluta continua. Viva ANC. Forward with workers’ struggle.

Sipho Dladla

Since Gatsha Buthelezi obviously reads Inqaba, comrade Diliza Mayosi decided that a letter to the editors might be a good way to confront him with some plain truths.

Dear Mangosuthu Buthelezi,

I decide to talk it out. What have you been born for? As I see in the first place you were born to be the shield of the Botha government. Secondly, to kill, thirdly, to cause the fight between black brothers and fourthly to try to form a big organisation to crush the peoples’ organisation. And those who don’t know about freedom of the people, they join for the sake of you.

In 1955, the people adopted the Freedom Charter so that Verwoerd’s government must know what the people are dying for.

Read here Gatsha:

The people shall govern! The country’s wealth shall be shared amongst us all! The land shall be shared amongst us all!

The doors of learning and culture shall be opened to all! All shall be equal before the law! There shall be houses, security and comfort for all! There shall be peace and friendship!

You don’t support this because you want to be the boss of the people. We launch the UDF, Inkatha attacks us. We launch Cosatu, you form Uwusa to attack us; we launch SAYCO, you have Inkatha Youth League to attack us. This is what you are there for: to be the shield of the state!

How many black brothers have been killed by your Inkatha vigilante impis? Remember how you killed Mrs Mxenge and for what? How many black brothers had you killed from January to December 1987 and what for too? See what I mean when I say you are there to kill us?

Inkatha, Uwusa, Inkatha Youth League, vigilantes and impis are our black brothers because what we want, we want for them. But they are still killing us because of you. You kill members of Cosatu because they fight for a living wage. You kill members of the UDF because they want democracy and socialism. When will you stop this?

You know what, one day God will show us a plan to protect our lives from you and at the same time, time will tell! You think you are living in heaven but you are living in hell!

From a worried comrade,

Diliza Mayosi,

Queenstown.

© Transcribed from the original by the Marxist Workers Party (2020).

[1] Star, 12 December 1987

[2] See New Nation, 17-22 December 1987

[3] Natal Mercury, 7 December 1987

[4] Weekly Mail, 18-23 December 1987

[5] Sunday Star 13 December 1987 and Financial Mail, 18 December 1987

[6] 16 December 1987

[7] Weekly Mail, 11-17 December 1987

[8] 12 February 1988

[9] Weekly Mail

[10] Weekly Mail, 18-23 December 1987. See also Natal Witness, 15 December 1987; Sunday Tribune, 17 January 1988