IFP founder and influential political figure Mangosuthu Buthelezi has passed away.
Mangosuthu Buthelezi, who founded South Africa’s opposition Inkatha Freedom Party and served for a decade as a cabinet minister after the country’s first multiracial elections, has died. He was 95.
He was derided by critics for collaborating with South Africa’s apartheid rulers and implicated in alleged human rights violations during a long-running conflict with the African National Congress, which won power in 1994. He partially redeemed his reputation by forging peace between Inkatha and the ANC, joining Nelson Mandela’s government.
The commission, created in 1995 by the government to probe apartheid-era atrocities, found Inkatha responsible for human rights violations. Inkatha’s leadership, allied with the White security forces and planned violent attacks against ANC supporters, according to its 1998 report. Inkatha rejected the commission’s findings as biased and inaccurate.
Buthelezi refused the ANC’s offer of the country’s deputy presidency in return for Inkatha relinquishing the KwaZulu-Natal premiership and in 2004 then-president, Thabo Mbeki, omitted him from the cabinet.
South Africa Latest News, South Africa Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
IFP founder Mangosuthu Buthelezi has diedAn accomplished orator, historian and custodian of Zulu tradition and culture, Buthelezi was perhaps one of the most contradictory figures in South African politics
Read more »
Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi: FIVE things about the IFP founderDid you know that Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi also had an acting credit to his name? Here are some interesting facts about him
Read more »
| Former IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi has diedPrince Mangosuthu Buthelezi, founder of Inkatha Freedom Party, democratic South Africa’s first Minister of Home Affairs, (IFP) and long-serving traditional Zulu prime minister, has died.
Read more »
Political enigma Mangosuthu Buthelezi passes away aged 95Prince Buthelezi, or as many others call him - uMmntwana wakwa Phindangenee – has been without question one of the most polarising political figures South Africa has ever produced.
Read more »