Buthelezi, Mangosuthu G.

born August 27, 1928, Mahlabatini, Natal, South Africa

in full Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi Zulu chief, head (1972–94) of the nonindependent black state of KwaZulu, and leader of the Inkatha Freedom Party.

Buthelezi was descended from the Zulu royal line through the legendary King Cetshwayo. He attended South African Native College (now University of Fort Hare) and was a member of the Youth League of the African National Congress (ANC). His political activities brought about his expulsion from school, but he completed his degree in history and Bantu administration at the University of Natal. He assumed his role as the hereditary chief of the Buthelezi clan of Zulus in 1953 and was accepted in that role by white authorities about four years later.

Though he initially opposed the creation of black homelands (then called Bantustans), Buthelezi won election as chief minister of KwaZulu in 1972. In 1975, having broken with the African National Congress over (among other things) its espousal of violence and economic sanctions to end the government's policy of apartheid, Buthelezi revived Inkatha yeNkululeko yeSizwe (National Cultural Liberation Movement), founded in 1924 by his grandfather, King Dinizulu, as a Zulu cultural movement. Buthelezi rejected full independence for KwaZulu and continued to work within the white establishment to end apartheid.

After the South African government lifted its ban on the ANC in 1990 and began signaling its willingness to disband the apartheid system, Buthelezi became engaged in a fierce struggle for political leadership with the ANC and its allies for the allegiance of black South Africans. As a result, thousands were killed in clashes between Inkatha and ANC supporters in Natal province in the years 1990–94. Meanwhile, Buthelezi converted his cultural movement into a political party, the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), in order to compete in South Africa's first inclusive parliamentary elections, which were held in 1994. His party received about 10 percent of the total vote, and Buthelezi was appointed minister of home affairs in a coalition government formed by ANC leader Nelson Mandela, South Africa's first black president. After Mandela left office in 1999, Buthelezi continued to hold the post in President Thabo Mbeki's government until 2004.