Contralesa in KwaZulu-Natal has noted with profound irritation and indignation the recent revelations made by one of the chief instigators of apartheid, Eugene de Kock, who in his own words confessed that as apartheid police who were killing our people, they acted in collaboration with the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) during the 1980s and early 1990s.
According to his confession, the IFP received monies and weapons to fuel black-on-black violence that claimed the lives of many of our people, including our founding President, Inkosi Mhlabunzima Maphumulo, and many others affiliated to Contralesa.
Inkosi Mhlabunzima Maphumulo suffered grave injustice under both the apartheid Government and the KwaZulu Government led by the IFP, which was a Bantustan, an illegitimate and undemocratic regime. The late Inkosi Mhlabunzima Maphumulo was brutally assassinated during the early 1990s when the Government of KwaZulu and the apartheid regime were in charge. He was killed for publicly opposing apartheid and the IFP-led Government.
Contralesa was instrumental in fighting for the freedom we now enjoy. Today, Contralesa is subjected to similar treatment to that suffered by Inkosi Mhlabunzima Maphumulo under the IFP-led Government before 1994.
The current administration led by Rev. Thulasizwe Buthelezi is ensuring that Contralesa in KwaZulu-Natal is systematically excluded from the national question and from participation in the Department of COGTA in representing its members. The IFP has always been known for the abuse of power whenever it is in charge.
We, as Contralesa in KwaZulu-Natal, demand an inquest into the death of Inkosi Mhlabunzima Maphumulo. We have strong suspicion that those who killed him and other AmaKhosi who were members of Contralesa are now being rewarded with political positions, and we cannot countenance that. Even those who were inspired by the brutality of the KwaZulu Government in what they did to Inkosi Mhlabunzima Maphumulo now occupy positions of power.
Furthermore, under this democratic dispensation, Contralesa has witnessed with deep pain those who were responsible for the injustice inflicted upon Inkosi Mhlabunzima Maphumulo being rewarded with State Funerals, while the community of Mbambangalo, formerly known as Emaqonqo, the family and the membership of Contralesa still have no closure as to how Inkosi was murdered in Pietermaritzburg.
Contralesa is not surprised that the Government of Provincial Unity (GPU), which is led by the very same organisation that ill-treated our leadership and our first President of Contralesa, is now calling in soldiers against our own people, to continue the brutality that it once perpetrated in cahoots with the white apartheid Government.
What is even more alarming is that history appears to be repeating itself under Premier Thami Ntuli of the IFP. Just as the IFP was previously armed to kill our people during the 1980s and early 1990s, today Premier Thami Ntuli has once again invited and deployed the SANDF into our communities under the pretext of dealing with illegal immigration. Contralesa views this as a dangerous re-militarization of KwaZulu-Natal and a continuation of the IFP’s long history of using state security forces against black people.
The ANC has sold our founding President and his legacy to the IFP-led Government of the Government of Provincial Unity (GPU). History will judge them harshly, particularly in KwaZulu-Natal.
As the remaining members of Contralesa in our Province, we shall not allow the legacy of Inkosi Mhlabunzima Maphumulo to be wiped out by the Government of Provincial Unity.
Contralesa in KwaZulu-Natal, as an apolitical organisation, must realign with other progressive political parties that actively represent the black majority. Contralesa knew that an IFP-led Government would not want Contralesa to represent its members and that our members would be ill-treated within the Government of Provincial Unity.
We will not allow the blood of a son of the soil, the royal blood, to perish in vain. The family, the community of Mbambangalo and the membership of Contralesa deserve to know who killed our leader during the 1990s, now that the former police of the white Government has finally revealed the motive
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