Abstract
In the six-year period to 1992, the conflict in Natal, fought with ‘sticks, spears, knives, homemade guns and automatic weapons’ (Maré, 1991: p. 186), has seen over 4000 African people killed, with many more injured. It has witnessed the destruction and burning of homes, mass intimidation and created tens of thousands of refugees. In the worst-hit areas, the provision of basic welfare services — notably education and health — has all but collapsed, and it would be hard to find somebody who did not know someone who had been killed or injured in the conflict. Most accounts focus on events in and around Pietermaritzburg and the Natal Midlands from 1984 onwards and view the conflict as having spread down the Pietermaritzburg—Durban corridor and along the coast, north and south of Durban. It is unlikely, however, if the full extent of the conflict, given its pure breadth and varied nature, will ever be known; accurate figures simply do not exist.
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© 1994 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Taylor, R., Shaw, M. (1994). The Natal Conflict. In: Brewer, J.D. (eds) Restructuring South Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-23292-5_3
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