Nigeria Orders Crackdown After Dozens Killed in Key Farm Region
Unidentified assailants killed more than 100 people in an attack in the southeastern state of Benue that began on the night of June 13 and lasted several hours, with homes set on fire and people shot, according to the police. Thousands of people have died in a yearslong conflict over access to land and water in Benue between nomadic herders and mostly sedentary farmers.
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News24
2 hours ago
- News24
Chief with a Double Agenda: A hidden history now open to South Africans
'Chief with a Double Agenda is not just a book about Buthelezi,' writes Mandla J Radebe in his introduction to this republished work. 'It is a book about betrayal, ideology, class collaboration and the dangers of political amnesia. It is about the ways in which colonial and apartheid regimes co-opted segments of the oppressed to maintain power and how those collaborations were rationalised in the language of pragmatism. It is about the limits of reconciliation without justice and the costs of democracy built on silence and expediency.' Gatsha Buthelezi: Chief with a Double Agenda was first published in London in 1988 but was made unavailable in South Africa because of litigation threats by Mangosuthu Buthelezi (clan name Gatsha). Jacana Media has now republished this historic work to make it widely available, and it is News24's Book of the Month for July. Operating from within the South African government's apartheid systems, Buthelezi – Chief Minister of the KwaZulu homeland – presented himself as a leading opponent of apartheid but resolutely opposed the struggle for liberation led by the ANC and its allies. He preached a doctrine of non-violence yet headed the Inkatha movement, which was widely accused of using violence against its opponents. In contrast to the call of the worldwide anti-apartheid movement for sanctions against South Africa, Buthelezi toured Western capitals seeking new investments. Who was this man, and what did he stand for? Whose side was he on? Jabulani Nobleman 'Mzala' Nxumalo examined these vital questions in an analysis using a wide range of materials, including interviews with some of Buthelezi's contemporaries, to investigate a complex political figure. In this edited extract from the introduction, Radebe gives the background to his controversial figure and the book. BOOK: Gatsha Buthelezi: Chief with a Double Agenda by Jabulani Nobleman 'Mzala' Nxumalo (Jacana) In the complex and contested history of South Africa's national liberation struggle, few figures have provoked as much controversy or generated such polarising views as the late 'traditional prime minister' to the Zulu kingdom and the founder of Inkatha Freedom Party, Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi (1928-2023). Revered by his followers as a traditionalist, nationalist, and statesman, and reviled by many within and beyond the liberation movement as a collaborator and reactionary, Buthelezi's political legacy remains entangled in contradictions. Nowhere are these contradictions more systematically dissected than in Jabulani Nobleman 'Mzala' Nxumalo's 1988 book Gatsha Buthelezi: Chief with a Double Agenda. Far from a conventional biography, Mzala's book qualifies to be regarded as a revolutionary polemic, influenced by Marxist-Leninist analysis and tradition, and intended not merely to inform but to also intervene. In this book, Mzala subjects Buthelezi to a public trial, ultimately indicting him as a political quisling – an African leader who, masked in the rhetoric of Zulu nationalism, eventually lent legitimacy to the apartheid regime's ethno-nationalist and divide-and-rule strategy. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine that such a characterisation wouldn't meet fierce contradictions. The publication of Chief with a Double Agenda marked a critical moment in the ideological contestation over the meaning of leadership, collaboration, and struggle for liberation in the latter years of apartheid South Africa. Mzala did not merely question Buthelezi's political choices, he denounced the entire edifice of the Bantustan system and its ideological underpinnings. In so doing, he exposed Buthelezi's role not as a tactical opponent of apartheid from within but as a vital cog in the apartheid state's infrastructure. Indeed, Buthelezi's association held strategic historical significance for the National Party, largely due to the demographic and symbolic weight of the Zulu kingdom, which the regime viewed as instrumental in legitimising and sustaining the broader project of apartheid. Mzala's thesis, delivered with precision and polemical force, rendered the book a political spectre – one that would haunt Buthelezi's public life until the very end. The significance of Mzala's intervention lies not only in its critique of one man but in what it reveals about the broader political conjuncture, particularly in the tumultuous 1980s. At a time when the apartheid state was facing internal revolts and international condemnation, and when elements within the liberation movement were debating strategies of armed struggle, negotiation, and mass mobilisation, Chief with a Double Agenda offered a sharp reminder that not all black leaders operated in the service of liberation. Mzala consistently advanced the argument that blackness, in and of itself, was not a marker of revolutionary consciousness and insisted that pigmentation alone, 'even if blacker than coal,' did not equate to progressiveness. Grounded in a Marxist-Leninist analysis of class collaboration and the national question, he categorically located Bantustan leaders such as Kaiser Matanzima, Lucas Mangope, and Patrick Mphephu within the camp of counter-revolutionaries, whose roles he viewed as antithetical to the objectives of national liberation. Equally, for Mzala, Buthelezi's insistence on operating within the apartheid-sanctioned structures, his leadership of the KwaZulu Bantustan, his opposition to sanctions, and his antagonism towards the United Democratic Front (UDF), represented not pragmatism but betrayal. It would be disingenuous to overlook the extent to which Buthelezi's legacy remains deeply contested, particularly in relation to his engagement with apartheid-era policies such as the Bantu Authorities Act (BAA). Enacted in 1951, the BAA constituted a foundational pillar of the apartheid state's ideology of 'separate development', systematically entrenching ethnic divisions by co-opting traditional leadership structures and institutionalising Bantustans as pseudo-autonomous entities under the firm grip of state control. Buthelezi assumed the chieftaincy of the Buthelezi 'clan' within the framework of this system in the early 1950s, a position that shaped his later political trajectory. As Chief Minister of KwaZulu, he projected himself as a vocal opponent of apartheid, even as he operated squarely within the architecture of the Bantustan system. This duality became a defining feature of his political identity and a source of enduring controversy among scholars, activists, and political commentators. While Buthelezi consistently defended his participation in the Bantustan system as a form of strategic resistance from within, many critics interpreted his role as calculated collaboration with the apartheid state. His refusal to accept nominal 'independence' for KwaZulu distinguished him from other homeland leaders, with Buthelezi arguing that such 'independence for the homelands was a government strategy aimed at stripping blacks of their South African citizenship' (JL Marshfield). Yet, notwithstanding this stance, his tenure was characterised by authoritarian governance and credible allegations of political violence, particularly targeting ANC-aligned structures such as the UDF. The findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) further complicated his legacy, establishing evidence of collusion between Inkatha and the apartheid security apparatus. Some scholars characterised Buthelezi as a conservative nationalist who sought to 'use the system against itself' by operating within the confines of the apartheid framework and exploiting the margins of state tolerance in an effort, ostensibly, to subvert its legitimacy from within. Yet, his frequent appropriation of historical figures such as Pixley ka Seme to buttress his own leadership claims demonstrate the ideological ambiguity at the heart of his political project. This manoeuvring often placed him at odds with the broader liberation movement, particularly the ANC, which viewed his sustained engagement with the apartheid state as both politically damaging and ideologically suspect. Nowhere did these tensions find sharper expression than in Mzala's Chief with a Double Agenda, whose incisive critiques cast Buthelezi as a political actor deeply complicit in legitimising apartheid. As such, any serious engagement with Buthelezi's legacy must grapple with the dialectic of resistance and collaboration.
News24
3 hours ago
- News24
Four cops, 1 traffic official arrested after R700K goes missing during arrests at shop
Three police officers and one traffic official have been arrested after a large amount of cash went missing during arrests made on Monday. Although R900 000 was confiscated, only R130 000 was booked in as evidence, according to police. The officers will join six co-accused in the matter. Three police officers and a traffic officer have been arrested in connection with allegations that money had gone missing during arrests they had made in Johannesburg on Monday. They are expected to join six co-accused in the case. Hawks spokesperson Brigadier Thandi Mbambo said the Hawks' Serious Corruption Investigation (SCI) team in Johannesburg arrested the three police officials and one traffic officer, aged between 30 and 45, on Thursday. The arrests came after a man reported on Monday that he had received a call from one of his employees who told him police officers were at his shop. 'The complainant instructed his employee to request the officers to wait until his arrival. However, the call was abruptly disconnected. Upon arriving at the shop, the complainant found it closed,' said Mbambo. READ | Three City of Tshwane officials arrested over theft of R7m transformer 'He proceeded to Johannesburg Central police station, where he was informed that his employees had been arrested for contravening Section 9 of the Currency Act.' The charges against the employees were later withdrawn. However, around R900 000 was taken from the shop during the police operation, and 'only a portion of the money had been officially booked into SAPS records', according to Mbambo. He said only R130 000 of the R900 0000 had been booked into the SAPS register as the amount recovered. 'A preliminary investigation was launched, and the Hawks traced the suspects to Newtown. Upon searching several vehicles at the scene, the Hawks recovered a substantial amount of cash from one of the vehicles,' Mbambo added. Four officers attached to the Hawks' Serious Organised Crime Investigation team in Gauteng and Gauteng police – Captain Letlhogonolo Andrew Molatlhegi, 59, Warrant Officer Mabutho Masina, 46, Constable Mpho Irvyn Netshivhera, 30, and Constable Nhlamulo Matsilela, 30 – were arrested. Two civilians - Simon Mapusi Rakuba, 47, and Lebogang Tseto, 41 – were also taken into custody. 'These newly implicated officials have since been arrested and are expected to appear before the Johannesburg Magistrate's Court on Friday, where they will join their six co-accused,' Mbambo said.
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Heatwaves and hand-to-hand combat: Africa's top shots
A selection of the week's best photos from across the African continent and beyond: Big shake-up in Nigerian politics as heavyweights join forces Queen of Katwe's gambit still in play for Uganda's slum chess players DR Congo-Rwanda peace deal met with scepticism in rebel-held city Go to for more news from the African continent. Follow us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica Focus on Africa This Is Africa
