The Mandela-Buthelezi Royal Hotel Agreement
On 29 January 1991, African National Congress (ANC) Deputy President Nelson Mandela and Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) President Gatsha Mangosuthu Buthelezi met in Durban’s Royal Hotel for the first time in 30 years since the early 1960s to address escalating political violence. The leaders signed a joint communiqué, known as the Royal Hotel Agreement, committing to peace, renouncing violence, and allowing freedom of political activity.
The meeting was crucial to halting the so-called “black-on-black” violence in KwaZulu-Natal, fostering reconciliation between the warring factions, which resulted in the parties agreeing to ban “killing talk”, to end intimidation, and to hold joint rallies. While they held an 8-hour meeting to find common ground, tensions persisted throughout the early 1990s due to disagreements over the transition to democracy. Even though the 1991 meeting was a significant step toward peace, sporadic conflict continued until, and even after, the 1994 elections.
Every day newspapers were flooded with information pertaining to bloody violence in the townships and rural areas of Natal and in the Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vaal (PWV) areas, which was a combination of crime, political rivalries, police brutality and mysterious death squads that made life difficult for the black communities living in those areas. It became imperative therefore for the leaders to ensure that the violence was dealt with decisi
