Page 4066 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 24 October 1990
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In calling for our international isolation one gets an early clue of where Mr Haigh is coming from. Finally, in his last paragraph he lets the cat out of the bag: Inkatha must be "deprived" of funds.
Inkatha believes choice is what democracy is all about and that all South Africans, regardless of race, creed or colour, should at last (after suffering the evils of apartheid) have the right to freely support the leaders and organisations they wish to.
How can a multi-party democracy have any hope in hell of getting off the ground in South Africa if international favour (and finances) are significantly weighed now towards some to the exclusion of others.
The horrors of one-party State rule are well-known throughout Africa and what chance have we got if the Bruce Haighs of this world assist in perpetrating a climate of political intolerance and encouraging external manipulation?
In praising those who have, he claims, denied me access to your country, he is preaching the kind of tyranny that denies freedom of speech, not only to me but to many others. Until now I didn't realise people of this ilk had such power in Australia.
He asserts, incredibly, that Inkatha with 1.8 million paid-up members has "very little" support. The ANC (according to Newsweek magazine - October 15) has yet to reach the 200,000 mark in its ongoing membership drive.
Far from "sponsoring" so-called "tribal" violence, which I denounce, I have espoused peaceful change and negotiation all my life and, at great political and personal cost, refused to ally myself or my supporters with the ANC's armed struggle and with terrorism in any form whatsoever.
For that the ANC set out to teach Inkatha, and me in particular, a lesson and in 1985 it officially declared its intention (at its National Consultative Conference in Zambia) to "work to win over" my supporters, make Kwazulu "ungovernable", and to "deprive" me of my "social base".
The stage was then set for conflict and we have witnessed a sickening cycle of action and counter-action which, for the most part, is now completely out of control.
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