Might Join New Botha Council, Zulu Chief Says

SOWETO, South Africa —  Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi, the politically moderate Zulu leader, told President Pieter W. Botha’s government Sunday that he is interested in joining a proposed national council if it really has authority to draft a new constitution for the country.

Buthelezi said that the proposed multiracial council, largely rejected by other black leaders, could be “the beginning of the final victory in the black struggle for liberation,” finally bringing South Africa’s black majority into the government with a full share of political power. Blacks would be “foolhardy,” he said, to refuse out of hand to participate.

But Buthelezi, speaking to a government-authorized “prayer meeting” here of an estimated 12,000 supporters, put tough conditions on his own participation, including freedom for African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners, the repeal of all apartheid laws and the lifting of the current state of emergency.

‘A Talking Shop’

“If the national council is composed of ‘yes’ men and women chosen by the state president to suit his agenda,” Buthelezi said at the rally, “it will turn out to be a talking shop worth no more than (previous negotiating forums) that never got off the ground. . . . I will not go into the council unless I get a massive mandate from blacks to do so.”

The council is the centerpiece of the government’s strategy for step-by-step political reforms leading eventually to some form of power-sharing, and Buthelezi’s participation is regarded as essential if it is to draw other moderate black leaders and succeed.

Buthelezi, mindful of his importance to the government’s plans but aware that many blacks criticize him for going as far as he does, has now put Botha into a serious political predicament:

If the government wants to draw him and other moderates into negotiations, it must meet their minimum conditions with concessions that far exceed reforms already enacted. If it balks, the national council will be rejected by moderates as well as by more militant blacks, the whole process of political reform will stop and prospects for a racial civil war will increase.

Zulus in Tribal Dress

Thousands of Zulus, armed with spears and clubs and with many wearing a Zulu warrior’s traditional tribal dress of leopard skins and cow hides, thronged a Soweto amphitheater for the rally, for which official permission was given under the state of emergency imposed June 12. Although Buthelezi’s greatest strength is in Natal province, where most of the country’s 6 million Zulus live--largely in the tribal homeland of which Buthelezi is chief minister--he also has considerable support among Zulu migrant workers here.

But Buthelezi’s moderate stance, as well as a general fear among other blacks of the Zulu militarism in his Inkatha movement, make him a highly controversial figure in black politics. Even before he spoke Sunday, a bomb had exploded at the amphitheater directly behind where he was to stand, and at least six people died in clashes last week between his supporters in Soweto and those of the outlawed African National Congress.

On Sunday, hundreds of heavily armed police and soldiers guarded the ampitheater where Buthelezi spoke in what the Soweto police commissioner, Brig. G. P. Laubscher, described as a major government effort to ensure the moderate black leader a major political platform despite radical intimidation. If Buthelezi could not speak, Laubscher said, it would be a major setback for the government.

Supporters Attacked

Buthelezi’s supporters were nonetheless attacked by youths with firebombs and stones as a convoy of buses left Soweto for Natal. Thirty-four people were reported injured when two buses and a minibus collided trying to avoid a attack, according to the government’s information bureau. After the collision, Zulu warriors aboard the buses, carrying their spears, shields and fighting sticks, chased dozens of Soweto youths through the streets, but there were no further reports of injuries.

During the fighting, a 35-year-old black was badly beaten and then arrested, apparently because he was seen as a threat to the chief’s personal security after the crowd found him carrying a pistol, which police said later was unlicensed. Zulu police, part of the heavy security presence at the amphitheater, had searched all those who entered for weapons, apparently fearing an assassination attempt on Buthelezi.