Homelands policy ‘bringing revolution’

Press, 26 February 1977, Page 6

Homelands policy ‘bringing revolution’

NZPA-Reuter Salem. Oregon The leader of the five million South African' Zulus. Chief Mangosutu Butheiezi. has said in Salem,! Oregon, that the Pretoria Government's insistence on j setting up African homelands will bring a bloody revolution to the country.

Chief Butheiezi. who is spending three days at Wilkamette University in Salem, said in a speech to students: “The blunt truth of the situation in South Africa is that apartheid threatens peace and order and persistence in implementing the homelands scheme will bring about a bloody revolution.” Later, the chief, who is Prime Minister of Kwa Zulu homeland, told a press conference that if South Africa dismantled some of its racial laws and absorbed more blacks into the Government, “it might minimise the scale of the impending violence there.” At the press conference, he also compared President Tai Amin of Uganda with Hitler and said: “There have been

disasters like Amin throughout history.” In his speech to the students. he called on the West to adopt new strategies to force the Pretoria Government to realise it had reached the end of the road. “I now feel we have reached a crucial period ' the struggle for liberation in South Africa,” he added. The Chief said that the i white Prime Minister (Mr John Vorster) “has clothed [himself with the most extraordinary powers and I ruthlessly eradicates all opposition. Black people in South Africa have developed a deep-seated mis- . trust of the fitness of white people to govern southern j Africa.” I The Zulu Chief said that

the Vorster Government’s plans to establish homelands were no solution to the country's racial problems, but rather “part of the problem.” He added that he expected little retribution from the Government for his speaking tour of the United Stages, but said he may lose his passport because of his criticism of the white administration. Chief Butheiezi. who is 48, has been chief cl his branch of the Zulu nation since 1957. He said he had made no formal plans to meet with representatives of the Carter Administration, but informal meetings with officials had been arranged.