| Operation Marion | |||||
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 An anti-apartheid protest in South Africa in the 1980s. | |||||
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Operation Marion was a domestic military operation fielded by the South African Defence Force (SADF) during the 1980s. The apartheid security forces trained Inkatha operatives to build an irregular militia. [1]
Operation Marion became an important element of the apartheid government's response to the rising popular insurgency led by the United Democratic Front and the Congress of South African Trade Unions during the 1980s. SADF Special Forces trained a Zulu militia at a camp in the Caprivi Strip in 1985. The first group of Zulu militia from the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) were dispatched to the Caprivi Strip from Durban by C-130 aircraft on 16 April 1986.
On 20 January 1987 the militia were used in what later became known as the KwaMakhutha Massacre when 13 people were killed as a result of flawed intelligence. [2] In January 1988 IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi again approached Chief of Staff Intelligence asking for additional training of his militia in order to swing the balance of power against the United Democratic Front (UDF) and Confederation of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) forces, then operating as a surrogate for the African National Congress (ANC) in areas of KwaZulu. This request was interpreted as consistent with the Total National Strategy then in place, so the support was given.
On 1 December 1988, a vigilante force from the IFP took over a place called Trust Feed, which had recently become a UDF centre of power. On 3 December, the Trust Feed Massacre took place, killing 11 and wounding 2. [3]
The perpetrators were brought to trial and sentenced to 15 years in prison on 23 May 1992. One of the most high-impact activities allegedly arising from Operation Marion was the Boipatong massacre by IFP members, which left 43 dead on 17 June 1992. [4] This event became a turning point for the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA) when Nelson Mandela withdrew the ANC over claims of police involvement. [5] The activities arising from Operation Marion became the subject of intense investigation by the Goldstone Commission of Enquiry. [6] The Commission appointed Peter Waddington to make an independent enquiry, which reported no evidence of police collusion in the massacre. [7]
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The Inkatha Freedom Party is a right-wing political party in South Africa. Although registered as a national party, it has had only minor electoral success outside its home province of KwaZulu-Natal. Mangosuthu Buthelezi, who served as chief minister of KwaZulu during the Apartheid period, founded the party in 1975 and led it until 2019. He was succeeded as party president in 2019 by Velenkosini Hlabisa.
Prince Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi was a South African politician and Zulu prince who served as the traditional prime minister to the Zulu royal family from 1954 until his death in 2023. He was appointed to this post by King Bhekuzulu, the son of King Solomon kaDinuzulu, a brother to Buthelezi's mother Princess Magogo kaDinuzulu. Buthelezi was chief minister of the KwaZulu bantustan during apartheid and founded the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) in 1975, leading it until 2019 and became its president emeritus soon after that. He was a political leader during Nelson Mandela's incarceration (1964–1990) and continued to be so in the post-apartheid era, when he was appointed by Mandela as Minister of Home Affairs, serving from 1994 to 2004.
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The apartheid system in South Africa was ended through a series of bilateral and multi-party negotiations between 1990 and 1993. The negotiations culminated in the passage of a new interim Constitution in 1993, a precursor to the Constitution of 1996; and in South Africa's first non-racial elections in 1994, won by the African National Congress (ANC) liberation movement.
The Shell House massacre was a 1994 shooting incident that took place at Shell House, the headquarters of the African National Congress (ANC), in central Johannesburg, South Africa in the lead up to the 1994 elections.
The Boipatong massacre took place on the night of 17 June 1992 in the township of Boipatong, South Africa.
The Goldstone Commission, formally known as the Commission of Inquiry Regarding the Prevention of Public Violence and Intimidation, was appointed on 24 October 1991 to investigate political violence and intimidation in South Africa. Over its three-year lifespan, it investigated incidents occurring between July 1991 and April 1994, when democratic elections were held. The relevant incidents thus occurred during the negotiations to end apartheid. The Commission's mandate was both to investigate the causes of the violence and to recommend measures to contain or prevent it.
Boipatong Vanderbijlpark is a township in Gauteng, South Africa. It was established in 1955 to house black residents who worked in Vanderbijlpark and Vereeniging.
Trust Feed is a small rural town in Umgungundlovu District Municipality in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa.
There have been many political assassinations in post-apartheid South Africa. In 2013 it was reported that there had been more than 450 political assassinations in the province of KwaZulu-Natal since the end of apartheid in 1994. In July 2013 the Daily Maverick reported that there had been "59 political murders in the last five years". In August 2016 it was reported that there had been at least twenty political assassinations in the run up to the local government elections on the 3rd of August that year, most of them in KwaZulu-Natal.
Baldwin Sipho "Ben" Ngubane was a politician from South Africa. He held multiple positions in the post-apartheid government of the country. In particular, he was Premier of KwaZulu-Natal from 1997 to 1999 and Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology from 1994 until 31 August 1996 and from February 1999 until April 2004.
Siphiwe Mvuyane was a South African police officer who died on 9 May 1993. During the period of "low intensity warfare" in South Africa which largely pitted the African National Congress (ANC) and Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), Siphiwe Mvuyane was on the side of the IFP. During the period of the "low intensity warfare", the IFP was the sole ruling party of the Bantustan KwaZulu government, and worked in collaboration with the apartheid government, whereas the ANC was operating underground; as a result the IFP had an upper hand over the ANC when it came to the warfare. But post apartheid, the African National Congress (ANC) became the governing party in South Africa whereas the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) became one of the opposition parties in the South African parliament, as a result the ANC gained the upper hand over the IFP in the remaining years of the warfare as the ANC was in control of the state apparatus by virtue of being the governing party. The IFP leadership denied its involvement in sanctioning and orchestrating political violence in the furtherance of its political objectives during the period of the "low intensity warfare" in South Africa.
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The Security Branch of the South African Police, established in 1947 as the Special Branch, was the security police apparatus of the apartheid state in South Africa. From the 1960s to the 1980s, it was one of the three main state entities responsible for intelligence gathering, the others being the Bureau for State Security and the Military Intelligence division of the South African Defence Force. In 1987, at its peak, the Security Branch accounted for only thirteen percent of police personnel, but it wielded great influence as the "elite" service of the police.
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Lionel Percival Hercules Mbeki Mtshali was a South African politician who was Premier of KwaZulu-Natal from 1999 to 2004. He was known for unilaterally ordering the expansion of the province's antiretrovirals programme during the HIV/AIDS epidemic, in defiance of the policy of the national government under President Thabo Mbeki. A founding member and former chairperson of the Inkatha Freedom Party, Mtshali was also national Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology in the government of President Nelson Mandela from 1996 to 1999.
Thembinkosi Samson Khoza was a South African politician who represented the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) in the National Assembly from 1994 until his death in May 2000. He was a former leader of the IFP's Youth Brigade and served as the party's leader in Gauteng province. In the 1980s and 1990s, he was credited with expanding the IFP's political presence in the Transvaal.
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