Inkatha Attack Repelled at ANC Shell House Headquarters

Inkatha Attack Repelled at ANC Shell House Headquarters

On 28 March 1994, African National Congress (ANC) security guards opened fire on raging Inkatha impis, who were armed with guns, assegais and battle axes, marching and shooting towards the ANC Headquarters in Shell House, in protest against the 1994 elections. After several shots were fired during the fracas outside the building, nineteen Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) supporters were killed. ANC security guards claimed that the IFP supporters were storming the building, gunfire from the crowd rang out and bullets struck the walls of Shell House.

During the phase of establishing a constitution for South Africa and prior to the first free elections in South African history, which were scheduled for 27 April 1994, bloodshed frequently occurred between Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and the African National Congress (ANC). Both parties attempted to campaign in each other’s Natal strongholds, as well as in the Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vaal (PWV) Area suburbs and townships, wherein Inkatha used hostels as fortresses against the largely ANC-aligned communities. The conflict’s turning point was the 28 March 1994 shooting incident that took place at Shell House, the headquarters of the ANC, in central Johannesburg.

The incident triggered a state of emergency across eleven magisterial districts in the East Rand, as well as the whole of the KwaZulu Bantustan and Natal province. IFP leader Chief Buthelezi vowed to fight the ANC “to the finish” unless the elections were postponed. Apartheid President De Klerk appointed an inquest, led by Judge Robert Nugent, to investigate the killings that occurred outside the Shell House building. Mandela later stated that he had given the instruction to ANC guards to repel an IFP attack “even if they had to kill people”. At the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), 11 ANC staff members were later granted amnesty for the those who were killed after the incident.

At a crucial summit on 8 April 1994, which was regarded as the last effort towards achieving peace before the first democratic elections, talks between the IFP, the ANC, and the National Party (NP) deadlocked after fourteen hours of engagement. The thorny issues were the IFP’s demands for a federal constitution and the right of the Zulu Monarch to be constitutionally recognised. Following the collapse of the summit, both the ANC and the NP were however determined to push forward with the elections. The leader of the ANC, Nelson Mandela declared that “We cannot postpone our freedom”. Meanwhile Chief Buthelezi and other leaders of the IFP threatened that their campaign to get the right deal “would continue for another 100 years if necessary”.

In a final bid to find a solution, on 14 April 1994, Kenyan diplomat, Washington Okumu, arrived in South Africa to lead talks with the IFP’s Chief Buthelezi, after calls were made for international mediation to reconcile the IFP’s demands with the terms of the Interim Constitution. The meeting between Okumu and Chief Buthelezi, at a corporate retreat in the Eastern Transvaal, resolved that the IFP leader was prepared to negotiate further if the position of the Zulu kingdom could be guaranteed.

Delegates from the IFP proposed first, amending the Interim Constitution to recognise the Zulu King; second to promise further international mediation after the election; and third, to establish a trust to govern KwaZulu. This trust was to comprise and become the custodian of approximately 30 percent of the land of KwaZulu and the Zulu King Zwelithini was to be its sole trustee, thus creating a mechanism to preserve ethnonational interests in the land. Following an agreement on its concerns, on 19 April 1994, days before the election, the IFP reversed its decision not to partake in the elections and it was added to the already-printed ballot papers by means of a sticker.

Two days before the election, on 25 April 1994, Parliament gathered for a final time to amend the Interim Constitution in order to recognise the Zulu Monarch, and to legislate that there would be no substantial reduction of provincial powers in the final constitution as compared to the Interim Constitution. The deal secured the legitimacy of the elections and staved off a possible explosion of violence. The same day, De Klerk quietly signed the Ingonyama Trust Act into law. “Ingonyama” is a Zulu word that means “lion”, which is also used as a title for Zulu and Swazi kings, symbolizing power and strength.

Fearing erosion of his power, Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi collaborated with the apartheid South African Defence Force (SADF) and facilitated military training for an ethnic-based “Inkatha militia” from SADF Special Forces starting in the 1980s, as part of “Operation Marion”. Inkatha militia members were involved in several massacres, including among others the Trust Feed massacre on 3 December 1988 and the Boipatong massacre on 17 June 1992. In November 1993, the IFP signed a solidarity pact with the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB), with the AWB providing the IFP with military training and agreeing that “Boer and Zulu would fight together for freedom and land should they be confronted by a common enemy”.

Although Gatsha Buthelezi and the Inkatha leadership confessed non-violence, there was clear evidence that during the time that negotiations were taking place in the early 1990s, Inkatha and ANC members were at war with each other, and Self-Protection Units (SPUs) and Self-Defence Units (SDUs) were formed, as their respective protection forces. This led to a virtual civil war between ethnic-based Zulu loyalist supporters and ANC members in Natal, the PWV Area and some parts of the Eastern Transvaal. In 1991 the apartheid government admitted that it had secretly subsidized Inkatha in the latter’s deepening rivalry with the ANC after instances of expertise, financial and material support were exposed by those involved.

Responding to a Debate on the Shell House incident, Nelson Mandela, then as ANC President and President of a democratic South Africa said, “Shell House was not a bolt from the blue. The period of February and March 1994 had witnessed an intense campaign by forces bent on sabotaging the elections, to murder their way to this objective. … Shell House was not a bolt from the blue. Before the march on that day, the ANC had received information that some of the marchers were to be directed to attack Shell House, destroy information and kill members of the leadership.”

Sources:
Wikipedia.
South African History Online (SAHO).
Nelson Mandela, “Address by President Nelson Mandela at the snap debate on the Shell House incident in the National Assembly, Cape Town”, South African Parliament, 7 June 1995.
SAPA, “ANC Man Who Ordered Shell House Shooting Ensured Election”, South African Press Association, 11 May 1998.
Mlondi Radebe, “Families of Shell House Massacre Victims Say They Feel Neglected”, South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), 27 August 2023.
Lynne Duke, “Mandela Assailed for Shoot-To-Kill Orders”, The Washington Post, 7 June 1995.
Padraig O’Malley, “Report on the Shooting Incidents which took place in the Centre of Johannesburg on Monday, 28 March 1994”, Nelson Mandela Foundation, 21 April 1994.
Staff Reporter, “Shell House Counter Attack that was Deadly”, Mail & Guardian, 9 June 1995.
Staff Reporter, “Shell House How It Went Wrong”, Mail & Guardian, 8 July 1994.
Judge RW Nugent, “Shell House Massacre March 28 1994: The inquest findings”, PoliticsWeb, 28 March 2014.
Paul Weinberg, “The Aftermath of the Shell House Massacre”, Africa Media Online, 28 March 1994.
Greg Marinovich, “The Shell House Massacre: Another Piece of the Bloody Puzzle Emerges”, Daily Maverick, 04 April 2014.
Greg Marinovich, “The Truth Elusive: Shell House Massacre, 20 Years Later”, Daily Maverick, 28 March 2014.
TRC Report, “Shell House Massacre”, Truth and Reconciliation Commission Amnesty Hearings, 20 May 1998.

Castro Khwela
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