ANC Zulu leader assassinated

JOHANNESBURG - The assassination yesterday in Pietermaritzburg of one of the most influential Zulu leaders in the African National Congress, Reggie Hadebe, set the stage for an intensification of the war between the ANC and the Inkatha Freedom Party in Natal province, where 30 people died in two massacres at the weekend, writes John Carlin. Mr Hadebe, deputy chairman of the ANC in the bloody Natal Midlands region, was shot through the neck in an ambush.

An angry statement in response from the ANC leadership in Johannesburg contained a clear attack on President F W de Klerk and the 'dirty tricks' operators in the government apparatus and appealed to 'the people of Natal to exercise restraint and discipline at this time of extreme provocation'.

The Johannesburg Star reported yesterday that the Inkatha leader, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, had rejected a proposal by President F W de Klerk that he hold talks with the ANC President, Nelson Mandela.

The President announced yesterday that Gerrit Viljoen, the Afrikaner academic widely regarded as the architect of his apartheid reforms, will retire next month.