TOP STORY: ELECTION CROSSROADS: Church leaders in South Africa seek to head off election violence

c. 1996 Religion News Service PORT SHEPSTONE, South Africa (RNS)-The beach highway along South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal coast is dotted with bustling port towns and tranquil vacation communities full of upscale homes and golf courses. Holiday makers crowd the highways and seaside restaurants while the markets are packed with locals and tourists. Indeed, the whole area […]

c. 1996 Religion News Service

PORT SHEPSTONE, South Africa (RNS)-The beach highway along South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal coast is dotted with bustling port towns and tranquil vacation communities full of upscale homes and golf courses. Holiday makers crowd the highways and seaside restaurants while the markets are packed with locals and tourists.

Indeed, the whole area exudes such an aura of prosperity that one would scarcely suspect a civil war is raging in the province.


But go to the Rev. Danny Chetty’s office in Port Shepstone and the results of violence in this province come starkly to life. The score of people waiting in his lobby have come not for food or shelter but for money to buy coffins. Their loved ones are the most recent victims of political violence between followers of President’s Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC) and the mainly Zulu-based Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP). That violence has claimed some 14,000 people in the last 10 years.

With twice-delayed local elections set for the end of June, most everyone here is gearing up for an orgy of violence that could take place in the run-up to the emotionally charged vote. But now a loose association of church leaders and religious groups has come together to form a project known as Ukuthula-“Project Peace”in Zulu-to try to head off the violence. A sort of full- court press at the last minute, Ukuthula aims to bring together political leaders, at both the provincial and village levels, to promote peace. It also seeks to defuse confrontations between political factions before they explode.”I am not sure if we could stop a crowd bent on destruction, but we certainly have been able to keep a lot of situations from exploding into violence,”said Chetty, a Full Gospel Church of God minister who is the director of Project Ukuthula.

Although the violence in KwaZulu-Natal has many roots, including tribalism, land disputes and politics, it has taken the form of political rivalry between ANC and IFP supporters. After Mandela and the ANC were swept into power in the first all-race elections in South Africa in 1994, the IFP managed to retain control at the provincial level in predominantly Zulu KwaZulu-Natal. Local elections followed in most of the country in November 1995 but were delayed because of continuing violence in KwaZulu then and again in May (1996).

While the church has long been involved in trying to foster peace in the region, never has such a mass effort been mobilized. Urged into action by Mandela and other national leaders, church leaders in KwaZulu launched Ukuthula just a few weeks ago, but already results are evident. Violence has declined in the past two weeks. And in an extraordinary session of the provincial legislature in late May, several IFP and ANC legislators stood, proclaimed themselves warlords, committed themselves to peace and challenged their colleagues to join them.

But most religious leaders here warn that trouble still threatens in the coming weeks and that the only way to maintain peace is to stay constantly on top of the political elite and to defuse flash points, an extremely difficult task, according to Chetty.”It is not just a matter of getting everyone together and agreeing to make peace,”said Chetty.”The situation gets very complicated. I am chairman of the Port Shepstone local Peace Committee. In the last couple of years we have had members of that committee assassinated and members of the committee arrested for assassinating people.” While top religious leaders are in contact with political heavyweights, hundreds of church-sponsored peace monitors fan out through the province each day looking for political rallies, demonstrations and funerals, all potential flash points for violence.

The Rev. Sam Sithole of the Zulu Congregational Church is the leader of a peace monitoring team that works in the townships around Durban. He and the members of his team are volunteers for the Diakonia (Greek for”service”) Council of Churches, an ecumenical group that has been brokering peace in KwaZulu-Natal since the 1970s.

Recently, Sithole and his group discussed strategy for an upcoming Sunday, when two political rallies and the funeral of a slain IFP youth activist were scheduled in the area.”This is going to be a very busy Sunday,”said Sithole.”The trick is to keep the two sides from getting too close together. At the IFP funeral they will surely want to take the procession through an ANC area if they can. Our job is to keep them clear of each other and keep them moving all the time.” While Sithole and his team were to make their rounds, Diakonia Director Paddy Kearney, a Roman Catholic layman, was to meet with political and business leaders in the never-ending quest to elicit their endorsement for the peace initiative.”I have been involved in peace-making here for a long time, and I must say that I have never seen such cooperation from all sides,”said Kearney.”The atmosphere is very different now than before. It seems that they really want to make some progress.” But Kearney warned against quick fixes, saying the problems of KwaZulu will take years to resolve.”We had a miracle in South Africa when there was no violence during the 1994 elections,”said Kearney.”But not long after those elections things came unraveled in this province. What we need is long-term peace, not a quick fix.”(STORY CAN END HERE. BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM TO END)


Many of the mainline churches and established religious bodies such as Diakonia were very involved in the struggle against the white-ruled apartheid regime for many years. Because the ANC was at the forefront of that struggle, many in the church naturally came into contact with the ANC, and this old relationship has brought distrust from the IFP, according to religious leaders here.

But many of the newly established and rapidly growing evangelical churches are more trusted by the IFP. One such organization is African Enterprise, a group of evangelical churches that works all over Africa.

Its director, Michael Cassidy, is close to IFP leader Chief Mangosutho Buthelezi and is credited by many here for convincing Buthelezi to participate in the 1994 elections, averting wide scale-violence at the time. Nellis du Preez, Cassidy’s assistant at African Enterprise, says Cassidy and others at the organization are continuing to use their contacts with the IFP to push the Ukuthula concept.”I think the peace will stick here,”said du Preez,”I am hearing positive statements from political leaders that I have never heard before. Peace is breaking out, people are genuinely concerned and talking about it again.”

MJP END FLEMING

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