June 26, 1984
Arrived in the South African Homeland of GaZankulu for an interview with Mr. W. B. Matthews, Chief Secretary in the Chief Minister’s Office. He noted, with regard to the Chief Minister, (Hudson W. E.Ntsanwisi) “The Chief Minister is unable to get a cup of tea, between the Petersburg Holiday Inn and Pretoria. Any standard II, railway worker will be served but not the Chief Minister who is a `Doctor-Professor.’ He has to drink tea in his car.”

The Chief Minister, pictured below in 1973, was a supporter a former lecturer in Bantu Languages at the University of the North. He generally supported the homeland system but stated in 1990 that he approved of the F.W. De Klerk announcements and proposed reforms.

Mathews noted that all of the Northern Transvaal towns would have to close down if it were not for the black shoppers. They would scream to the heavens if they boycotted the Checkers but they will not let a black bank open up a branch in Pietersburg or serve and African a bottle of beer.

The Chief Secretary, who appears to be a reformer, talked about the limits of autonomy in the homeland system. Most of the officials are Afrikaners, seconded from the Department of Cooperation and Development. They are afraid to use the legal powers invested in the Act. Their first loyalty is with the people who pay them, who give them their promotions.

They introduced District Control Officers in Gazankulu (D.C.O.) who he said were really development officers. This met a lot of resistance from Pretoria, from C.&D. and from Justice and here from the Commissioner-General. But it is within the power of the Chief Minister to make these changes and we are going to do it. “We are going to push the homeland policy as far as we can,” He said.

The Chief Secretary grew up in the Transkei, spoke fluent seXhosa and had worked in “Native” administration as a magistrate and native commissioner since the 1940s. There was he said, “a tradition of only using English speakers in the reserves on the grounds that paramount chiefs felt more comfortable with them.” Mathews noted that only two homeland leaders, Ntsanwisi and Buthelezi had requested the appointment of English speaking chief secretaries.

The problem was, he said, that the homeland policy had sparked off an increase in petty nationalism in the Northern Transvaal and in other areas. Perhaps it will be difficult to put a cap back on it.