source: CNN
Eastern South Africa seethed with mourners as the funeral of disputatious Zulu Prince cum politician, Mangosuthu Buthelezi took place.
The hated and loved by many South African politician, Zulu prince and controversial state actor during the apartheid liberation struggle, died last week aged 95.
Mourners – some dressed in traditional Zulu outfits made of leopard and other animal skins and holding shields crafted from cow hides – gathered at a stadium in the town of Ulundi, where they danced, sang and cheered ahead of the service.
South African media reported that two giraffes and six impalas had been slaughtered and skinned as part of the ritual preparations.
Reports says 2 giraffes and 6 mpalas were slaughtered as part of the rituals.
Buthelezi, the founder of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) who served two terms as Minister of Home Affairs in the post-apartheid government after reconciling with his governing African National Congress (ANC) rival, had undergone a procedure for back pain in July and was later readmitted to hospital but it did nothing near healing up.
Founder of the IFP in 1975, it became the dominant force in what is now KwaZulu-Natal province.
One of his quite unusual but conspicuous parallels with the ANC, was how he was critical of white minority rule, which had relegated Zulus and other Black South Africans to downsized ‘homelands.’
The two parties made peace when Buthelezi decided to participate in South Africa’s 1994 election, the first national poll since the end of white minority rule, which brought Nelson Mandela to power.
By then some 20,000 people had been killed and hundreds of thousands fled their homes in fighting between Buthelezi’s supporters and those of the ANC, as a result of which critics dubbed Buthelezi a war lord. He stepped down as IFP leader in 2019.