The Mandela-Buthelezi Royal Hotel Agreement

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 decisively in order to allow a smooth transition into a new dispensation.

As the leader of the ANC, Nelson Mandela, took it upon himself to try and arrest the spiral of violence by engaging Chief Gatsha Mangosuthu Buthelezi to hold a special meeting in Natal. The meeting was held at the Durban’s Royal Hotel on 29 January 1991, and Mandela allowed Buthelezi to speak first to the assembled delegated and the media. Unfortunately, Buthelezi disastrous speech did not attempt to heal the festering wounds of violence, but made the matters worse when he catalogued ANC verbal attacks against him as well as criticised the ANC’s negotiating demands.

When Mandela’s turn came to speak, he decided not to respond to Buthelezi’s attacks and instead thanked him for his efforts over the years to secure his release from prison. Mandela cited their long relationship and emphasised on many matters that united, rather than divided, their two organisations. According to Mandela, “If we are to fulfil the true purpose of our get-together, there must be no victors or losers as between the ANC and Inkatha. Only our people must be the victors. And the only losers should be those whose racist policies are served by carnage among blacks.”

He went on to say, “The eyes of the world are on us. The majority of the people in this ravaged province and other parts of the country certainly wish us success. The angels of death and destruction – the defenders of white minority rule – will the opposite. We must satisfy and disappoint in equal measure. We must deliver.” As a consequence of Mandela’s humble approach, progress was achieved during their private talks, leading to an agreement being signed, which contained a code of conduct for the behaviour of the two organisations. The contents of the accord were fair and balanced, and their successful implementation could have led to the stabilisation of the situation.

Unfortunately, the Inkatha leadership did not make an effort to ensure the successful implementation of the accord’s resolutions. And certain elements within the ANC were not cooperative, since they felt that they were left vulnerable to violence meted out by the Inkatha warlords supported by the apartheid security forces. Violence continued unabated between the two organisations and people continue to die in large numbers such that townships around Johannesburg became war zones. For instance, on 26 to 27 March 1991, 45 people were killed in Alexandra township, an incident which became known as the Alexandra Night Vigil Massacre. In all these acts of violence, no one was arrested, which evidently confirmed apartheid police forces’ involvement.

Following these continued acts of violence, Mandela felt that he could not sit idly by and allow the situation to deteriorate any further. Accordingly, he engaged Chief Buthelezi for another meeting in April, which took place again in Durban, where strong statements were made and another agreement was signed. A few days later violence began to flare up again in the PWV area and in Natal, wherein it became obvious that the apartheid government was behind these acts, as a way of undermining and channelling the negotiations.

Subsequently, the ANC responded by demanding the dismissal of General Magnus Malan, who was the then minister of defence, and Adriaan Vlok, the then minister of law and order; the banning of the carrying of traditional weapons in public; the phasing out migrant-worker hostels, where many members of the Inkatha resided, and used these hostels as violence launching bases in the townships around Johannesburg, the Vaal area and in Durban; the dismantling of covert counter-insurgency units that were still funded by the apartheid government; and the appointment an independent commission of inquiry to probe surreptitious operations undertaken by the apartheid security forces and units. In May 1991, the ANC announced the suspension of all talks with the apartheid government until all its demands were met.

During the period under scrutiny, the relationship between Nelson Mandela and Chief Gatsha Mangosuthu Buthelezi could be described as being cordial to sour when Mandela was released from prison and became the leader of the ANC. As the leader of the Inkatha Freedom Party and chief minister of the Kwazulu Bantustan, Gatsha Buthelezi was one of the prominent role players in South African politics. Furthermore, as a descendent of the great Zulu iNgonyama, uCetshwayo kaMpande, whose armed forces defeated the British at the Battle of Isandlwana, in 1979, he was regarded as being a prominent part of the great Zulu Kingdom.

However, despite his significant role in South African politics, he was regarded as being far from being a popular figure within the ranks of the liberation movement that was led by the ANC. Buthelezi had attended Fort Hare University, where he joined the ANC Youth League, and was at that time regarded as one of the movement’s upcoming young leaders. After leaving Fort Hare, he became chief minister of the KwaZulu Bantustan with the tacit support of the ANC, which even gave its blessing during the launch of Inkatha as a Zulu cultural organisation.

But he began to drift away from the ANC and became a thorn on the side of the democratic liberation movement, despite his resolute stance against apartheid and refusing to allow the KwaZulu Bantustan to become an “independent” homeland as the racist regime had wished. Buthelezi criticised the 1976 Soweto uprisings and was opposed to the armed struggle. Moreover, he campaigned against the imposition of international sanctions on the apartheid regime and challenged the idea of a unitary state of South Africa, rather opting for a federal arrangement along ethno-regionalist, especially Bantustan, lines.

Relations between Buthelezi and Mandela became sour as a result of Mandela’s refusal to meet with the former at his Bantustan capital, Ulundi, instead opting that they, with Walter Sisulu, were going to meet him at the Royal palace at Nongoma, with the Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini kaBhekuzulu, who was the legitimate leader of the Zulu Kingdom. Following the king’s approval to meet with the two ANC leaders, and when preparations were being done for such a visit, a letter was received a week later that insisted for Mandela to come alone, without Walter Sisulu. The ANC refused to yield to such a demand, as it became obvious that it had been made with the connivance of Gatsha Buthelezi.

Nelson Mandela’s “goal was to forge an independent relationship with the king, separate from my relationship with Chief Buthelezi. The king was the true hereditary leader of the Zulus, who loved and respected him. Fidelity to the king was far more widespread in KwaZulu than allegiance to Inkatha … Heavily armed Inkatha supporters had in effect declared war on ANC strongholds across the Natal Midlands region and around Pietermaritzburg. Entire villages were set alight, dozens of people were killed, hundreds were wounded and thousands became refugees. … In Natal, Zulu was murdering Zulu, for Inkatha members and ANC partisans are Zulus.”

Mandela maintained that “I was so concerned that I was willing to go to great lengths to meet Chief Buthelezi. In March (1990), after one particularly horrifying spasm of violence, I announced on my own that I would meet him at a mountain hamlet outside Pietermaritzburg. On a personal level, my relations with the chief were close and respectful, and I hoped to capitalize on that. But I found that such a meeting was anathema to the ANC leaders in Natal. They considered it dangerous, and vetoed my meeting. I did go to Pietermaritzburg, where I saw the burned remains of ANC supporters and tried to comfort their grieving families, but I did not see Chief Buthelezi.”

Sources:
Wikipedia.
South African History Online (SAHO).
Nelson Mandela, “Address by Nelson Mandela at opening of African National Congress (ANC)/Inkatha Freedom Party Summit”, Nelson Mandela Foundation, 29 January 1991.
John Battersby, “Mandela Meets Buthelezi Amid Hopes for End to Black Strife”, The Christian Science Monitor, 29 January 1991.
Christopher S. Wren, “2 Black Factions In South Africa Will End Rivalry”, The New York Times, 30 January 1991.
David B. Ottaway, “Black Factions Reach Accord: Mandela, Buthelezi Vow End to Bloodshed”, The Washington Post, 30 January 1991.
Weekly Mail Reporter, “Where a Massacre is a Way of Life”, Weekly Mail, 3 July 1992.
Nelson Mandela, “Long Walk to Freedom”, Abacus, 1994.

Castro Khwela
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