The bleeding hills of KZN

CHARLES KHUZWAYO and SANDILE MDADANE

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THE rolling green hills of KwaZulu-Natal could be mistaken for a postcard, with lush valleys, winding rivers, and villages tucked between sugarcane fields.

Yet behind this beauty lies a history soaked in blood. These are not just hills; they are graveyards of dreams, scarred by political assassinations that have claimed hundreds of lives and continue to cast a long shadow over South Africa's democracy.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the province burned with violence between the ANC/UDF and the IFP, a conflict that claimed thousands of lives. When the sun rose on democracy in 1994, there was hope that the killings would cease. But instead of peace, a darker chapter unfolded. The gunfire did not end; it simply changed targets.

Where apartheid once stoked conflict, the new fuel became tenders, contracts, and power struggles within the very parties that had fought for freedom.

The scramble for spoils of freedom and the proximity to lucrative tenders has proven fatal for many.

Analysts describe it bluntly: intra-party killings, politicians ordering hits on their comrades, and inter-party killings, where rivals are cut down by hired assassins. Councillors are the most frequent casualties, but traditional leaders and grassroots activists have also paid the price.

The murder of former ANC Youth League secretary general Sindiso Magaqa is one of the starkest reminders. In 2017, Magaqa, a councillor for Mzimkhulu Municipality, was shot for exposing corruption in a tender to refurbish the Mzimkhulu Town Hall.