ABSTRACT
Change came about with the announcement by F.W. de Klerk in 1990 that organisations would be unbanned and engaged with in a process leading to an inclusive democratic order. This after several years of meetings between the contesting parties outside of South Africa, intense internal resistance to apartheid, sanctions and a weak economy. KwaZulu had been a war zone for years, with violence continuing well into the 1990s. 1 Negotiations, tense already, and made even more so with the assassination of the charismatic MK and ANC leader Chris Hani, the failed insurrection by right-wing armed militants and then the ‘Shell House’ massacre, with some 50 protesters (mainly Inkatha members) shot dead by defenders of the ANC headquarters, teetered at times. Mangosuthu Buthelezi, Inkatha and the king took a position distinguishable by its regional focus, distinct from any other region in a democratic South Africa, based on Zulu ethnicity, the Zulu kingdom and the Zulu king. It favoured a federal system that would recognise all of these ethnic elements.
