Arrested bloodshed

30 August 2007 - 02:00
By unknown

For more than four decades, the country has borne witness to a bloody feud known as the Umsinga faction fights, so-called because of their place of origin in KwaZulu-Natal.

For more than four decades, the country has borne witness to a bloody feud known as the Umsinga faction fights, so-called because of their place of origin in KwaZulu-Natal.

Hundreds have died since the low-intensity war flared in the 1960s and was allowed to fester by successive apartheid regimes.

In fact, the so-called Zulu- on-Zulu violence served the interests of racist rulers who caricatured Africans as bloody savages.

Thankfully, our democratic government appears finally to be doing something to stop the blood-letting. Police raids have netted more than 100 illegal guns in the past four months.

Admittedly, this is just a drop in the ocean. The government's commitment to this programme needs to be effectively communicated to warlords.