allesennogwat
05-01-2007, 05:37 PM
Source-AFP
JOHANNESBURG - Thousands of South Africans marched in Durban on Tuesday to protest the renaming of streets after heroes of the ruling
African National Congress, sparking warnings of violence in the Zulu heartland.
At one point, shopowners and customers headed for cover as several hundred club-wielding militants ran down a major high street although there were no immediate reports of damage, the Sapa news agency reported.
One of the protesters' biggest gripes is the renaming of the Mangosuthu highway, named after veteran Zulu chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, to commemorate an ANC activist killed in the 1980s at the height of the anti-apartheid struggle.
Buthelezi has cautioned this could re-ignite tensions in the province of KwaZulu Natal which saw more than 20,000 killed in internecine violence between the ANC and followers of his Inkhatha Freedom Party.
"I feel obliged to caution the ruling party against their rush to rewrite the history of this province and country by giving prominence to only ANC-affiliated freedom fighters over everyone else involved in the struggle for liberation," Buthelezi wrote recently in his weekly letter.
The ANC government has set about changing the names of streets and towns as part of the country's transformation from apartheid-rule, angering many white Afrikaners who feel their historical legacy is being wiped out.
However the Zulus have joined the name-changing battle, after the decision to name Durban's new 2010 football stadium after the late SA Communist Party leader Moses Mabhida instead of a Zulu king.
Name changes have sparked controversy recently with the Indian community up in arms after a decision to rename Point Road, Durban's seediest area ridden with prostitutes and drug dealers, after the Indian independence hero Mahatma Gandhi.
It was also suggested than a main road be named after an ANC activist who was executed for planting a bomb that killed five people in the eastern metropolis in 1985.
South Africa's supreme court recently ruled that a town that had be renamed revert to its original name as proper legal processes had not been followed during the name change.
JOHANNESBURG - Thousands of South Africans marched in Durban on Tuesday to protest the renaming of streets after heroes of the ruling
African National Congress, sparking warnings of violence in the Zulu heartland.
At one point, shopowners and customers headed for cover as several hundred club-wielding militants ran down a major high street although there were no immediate reports of damage, the Sapa news agency reported.
One of the protesters' biggest gripes is the renaming of the Mangosuthu highway, named after veteran Zulu chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, to commemorate an ANC activist killed in the 1980s at the height of the anti-apartheid struggle.
Buthelezi has cautioned this could re-ignite tensions in the province of KwaZulu Natal which saw more than 20,000 killed in internecine violence between the ANC and followers of his Inkhatha Freedom Party.
"I feel obliged to caution the ruling party against their rush to rewrite the history of this province and country by giving prominence to only ANC-affiliated freedom fighters over everyone else involved in the struggle for liberation," Buthelezi wrote recently in his weekly letter.
The ANC government has set about changing the names of streets and towns as part of the country's transformation from apartheid-rule, angering many white Afrikaners who feel their historical legacy is being wiped out.
However the Zulus have joined the name-changing battle, after the decision to name Durban's new 2010 football stadium after the late SA Communist Party leader Moses Mabhida instead of a Zulu king.
Name changes have sparked controversy recently with the Indian community up in arms after a decision to rename Point Road, Durban's seediest area ridden with prostitutes and drug dealers, after the Indian independence hero Mahatma Gandhi.
It was also suggested than a main road be named after an ANC activist who was executed for planting a bomb that killed five people in the eastern metropolis in 1985.
South Africa's supreme court recently ruled that a town that had be renamed revert to its original name as proper legal processes had not been followed during the name change.