Chief disappointed meeting not held

Press, 11 September 1986, Page 8

Chief disappointed meeting not held

NZPA-AFP Johannesburg The moderate Zulu tribal homeland leader, Chief Gatsha Buthelezi, has expressed “deep regret” that Coretta King cancelled meetings with him and the South African President, Mr Pieter Botha, after pressure from anti-apartheid leaders.

Mrs King, the widow of the American civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, yesterday pulled out at the last minute of a scheduled meeting with Mr Botha and announced that she had cancelled a meeting today with Chief Buthelezi. Prominent antiapartheid leaders had said that such talks would betray their cause.

Chief Buthelezi said Mrs King’s meeting with Mr Botha would have been a “rising above strife-torn black politics” in South Africa. “The widow of such an illustrious son of America could have shown that black Americans can rise above internecine partypolitical feuding, which so lamentably characterises

black South African politics,” he said. Militant black opponents of the Government place Chief Buthelezi in the role of a collaborator who works within the apartheid system through his self-governing homeland, kwaZulu. Some have called him a “reactionary tribalist.” But Chief Buthelezi said his Inkatha political arm was the “largest black liberation movement ever to have emerged in the history of South Africa,”

and the “kind of organisation which Dr Martin Luther King would never have disdained.” Mrs King said she needed more time to consider South Africa’s complex problems. She arrived in South Africa last week with the declared aim of establishing a dialogue with as many people as possible “to gather information about the human suffering here.” Two anti-apartheid leaders, Winnie Mandela, and the Rev. Allan Boesak, criticised her for requesting talks with the President and said they would not meet her if the Botha session went ahead. She said she would like to meet Mr Botha at a later date. It appeared unlikely that a session would take place before Mrs King ends her trip today. Mr Boesak, a Coloured (mixed-race) church leader, criticised Mrs King for requesting a meeting with Mr Botha while the country was under emergency rule.