Word: zulu
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...Zulu leaders have long maintained that carrying spears is a cultural right. Last week, in a bid to halt political violence, President F.W. de Klerk secured an arms-control agreement with Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini. Henceforth, the spear will be added to the government's list of dangerous instruments that are banned in areas where unrest occurs...
Violence in the black townships is partly a struggle for power between the Zulu-based Inkatha Freedom Party and the African National Congress. Thus outlawing weapons will not in itself halt the killing. The A.N.C. says De Klerk's move falls far short of meeting several demands to end the black vs. black bloodshed that must be satisfied before the organization ends its boycott of negotiations on a new political system. But the A.N.C. is not exactly doing all it can to promote a climate of peace. As it was criticizing De Klerk last week, the A.N.C. refused to attend...
...negotiations were at the breaking point anyway because of those spears and battle-axes. To the A.N.C., at least, they have come to symbolize the black-vs.-black violence that has been tearing the nation's townships apart. Fighting between supporters of the predominantly Zulu Inkatha Freedom Party and A.N.C. backers has claimed more than 200 lives just this month and at least 1,000 so far in 1991. Archbishop Desmond Tutu voices grief that a weekend body count of 15 dead has come to be considered hearteningly...
A.N.C. leaders charge that white police have failed to prevent or actually fomented Zulu attacks on A.N.C. supporters, allegedly because the ruling Nationalist Party favors Inkatha as a presumably more pliable partner in a postapartheid government. So the supposedly more militant (indeed communist- allied) A.N.C. has been driven into the ironic position of demanding that the white government protect it from its fellow blacks -- starting with a ban on the Zulus' "cultural" weapons. Zulus say tribal tradition requires them to carry the spears, clubs and battle-axes in public, but the A.N.C. charges that they are being used to kill...
Some U.S. experts fear that De Klerk is endangering this time-table by "backsliding," seeking tactical advantage by playing black leaders such as Mandela and Zulu Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi off against each other. But Mandela voices faith in De Klerk's sincerity, and De Klerk reportedly told Major that he recognizes that the future of South Africa can be settled only between his government and the A.N.C...