"I sincerely hope that the apology to Mr Mandela and others that I carry in my heart will be as simply and publicly made by him and others as I have now again myself done," Buthelezi told the Truth and Reconcilation Commission.
He tendered the apology as he concluded testifying before a seven-member commission panel, chaired by Arcbishop Desmond Tutu, which was hearing his party's submission on its role in the apartheid conflict.
"I know that because we are human beings, and therefore sinners, that we shall still hurt each other even tomorrow," Buthelezi said.
"I nevertheless apologise for the past hurts and I do so also on behalf of my followers."
Buthelezi denied that he or other IFP leaders had ever ordered acts of violence.
"I have always abhorred violence. I abhor violence now and I will die abhorring violence. I personally have never made any decision to employ violence anywhere for any purposes whatsoever."
However, he acknowledged that IFP members had been drawn into the violence, and for this reason he was "saying sorry to South Africa".
"Although I have not orchestrated one single act of violence against one single victim of the political violence that has cost us many lives, as the leader of the IFP I know that the buck stops right in front of me."
While he had reservations about the commission's ability to uncover the truth of the country's past, he had chosen to appear before it because he could not remain silent about the 420 IFP leaders and thousands of supporters who had been killed in the ongoing conflict.
"These serial killings are a crime against humanity and demand answers. Nowhere else in the world could killing on such a grand scale go unchallenged and unexplained," he said.
In identifying the killers the commission should note Mandela's description of the IFP as "a surrogate of the apartheid regime" in an address to the United Nations.
"Does that not imply that the apartheid regime could not have killed IFP leaders and supporters? If it does, who killed them?"