Letter: Role of the Zulus

Sir: Your South African correspondent, John Carlin ('Back to the past when Boipatong buries its dead', 29 June), tends to equate hostels with Zulus and Zulus with the Inkatha Freedom Party.

The fact is Zulu-speaking blacks may be dominant in most hostels, but they certainly do not form 100 per cent of hostel residents in any given place, and hostel residents do not all come from Kwazulu.

There is a preponderance of Zulus in Inkatha, but not all Zulus are members and supporters of Inkatha. Moreover, a significantly high percentage of blacks living in the townships around the Reef hostels use Zulu to communicate. Therefore to implicate the Zulu nation and Inkatha in killing simply because the attackers were heard speaking in Zulu is a travesty of reason.

Yours faithfully,

BEN M. SKOSANA

London Representative

Inkatha Freedom Party

London, W1

29 June