Local peace and the South African transition

Abstract

From the time of Nelson Mandela's dramatic release from prison in 1990 until the 1994 elections, South Africa suffered tremendous community violence from politicized ethnic conflict. The protagonists were variously labeled: Politically, the conflict occurred between the African National Congress and the Inkatha Freedom Party (ANC vs. IFP). Ethnically, the conflict was seen as the “Zulus vs. Xhosas.” Socially, the protagonists were “squatters and hostel dwellers.” Often a township hostel (labor compound) reserved for Zulu speaking men, and controlled by the IFP, would be the flash point for weeks or months of intense factional fighting. The violence was widely viewed not only as a symptom of political tensions, and ethnic or tribal animosity, but also of organized “third force” provocation, intended by white right‐wing ideologues (including members of the security forces, the South African Defense Force and the South African Police) to derail the political transition process. While many credit the structures created by South Africa's National Peace Accord for mitigating township violence, parallel conflict resolution and prevention processes existed already in some communities. One of them created a zone of peace in Soweto's Meadowlands section. By examining the Meadowlands conflict, the intervention it provoked by the Wilgespruit Fellowship Centre's Negotiation and Community Conflict Programme, and the outcomes that helped the community establish their zone of peace, we can learn lessons that might be successfully applied to other conflicts.