Zulu King Calls for Peace but Assails the ANC : South Africa: His dual message at a rally points up the intractability of the factional fighting among blacks.

Tens of thousands of spear-carrying Zulus descended on a soccer stadium in waves here Sunday to hear their leader, King Goodwill Zwelithini, call for peace and accuse the African National Congress of “slanderous attacks” on the Zulu nation.

The Zulu king’s dual message reflected the intractability of the factional fighting in South Africa, which has pitted Zulu supporters of the Inkatha Freedom Party against mostly non-Zulu supporters of the ANC.

“I say to my father’s people that they must put away their killing weapons and . . . not be drawn into violence. I command thus,” Zwelithini told about 40,000 Zulus at the cultural rally.

But, the king added, “I say to Nelson Mandela, bring your people to the discussion table. I say to him, stop slinging mud and stop your people slinging mud. Stop this ugly vendetta against the Zulu people and their Zulu-ness.”

Although some Zulus may take the king’s call for peace to heart, his remarks about Mandela’s ANC were likely to fuel the strong anti-ANC feelings among many of the king’s subjects. That sentiment has led to much of the bloodshed.

“The government is talking too much to Mandela,” said Jeremiah Zulu, a 62-year-old from Soweto, who expressed the feelings of many at the rally. “Mandela is the one doing all the killing.”

Dozens of heavily armed police officers monitored the stadium grounds and escorted Zulu groups to their buses for the ride home. Many Zulus had driven several hundred miles for the rally.

Although Zulu chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi, who heads the Inkatha Freedom Party and is the king’s uncle, had warned of ANC attacks on Zulus after the rally, no incidents of violence were reported, police said.

Buthelezi’s Inkatha claims 2 million members among South Africa’s 7 million Zulus, who account for a fourth of all black South Africans and are the largest single ethnic group. Inkatha’s rival, the ANC, has fewer members, but independent opinion polls have placed ANC support at from 40% to 60% of the black population, as compared to a much smaller percentage for Inkatha.

Buthelezi has been angered by the ANC’s pre-eminence in power-sharing talks with the government, and he believes the ANC is attempting to keep Inkatha out of the negotiation process. The ANC is a multi-ethnic organization, and it has wide support among Zulus. But its top leadership includes only a few Zulus.

King Zwelithini said the ANC’s “killing talk” was responsible for the violence, which has claimed 4,000 lives in Inkatha’s home base of Natal Province since 1986 and another 1,500 lives in Johannesburg-area townships in the past year.

That killing talk, he claims, includes the ANC’s demands that the government convert single men’s hostels, home to many Zulu migrant workers in Johannesburg, to family units, and that the police ban the carrying of assegais, or stabbing spears, which the king says are Zulu “cultural weapons.”

“The call to ban the carrying of cultural weapons by Zulus is an insult to my manhood,” King Zwelithini said. “It is an insult to the manhood of every Zulu man. We carry them for pride, but not to kill.”

The government has banned the carrying of spears in “unrest areas,” which currently includes Soweto and a dozen other townships near Johannesburg. But it says they still may be carried at “cultural meetings,” such as the one staged Sunday. The ANC considers the carrying of spears to be provocative and has asked the government to ban them in all areas of the country.

Inkatha says that AK-47 rifles, pistols and bombs have caused most of the killing. The AK-47 is carried by both sides, but it is most closely linked with the ANC, which used the weapon during its 30-year guerrilla war against the white minority government in Pretoria. Spears and sharpened sticks have accounted for about a fifth of the deaths in Johannesburg-area townships, human rights groups say.

Thousands of spears were being carried at the rally Sunday, and one entrepreneur was selling machine-made spears in the stadium aisles for 40 rand (about $16).

“We carry these at home. We carry these every day,” explained Oscar Mthombeni, 27, from Katlehong township south of Johannesburg. “Our ancestor, King Shaka, carried these weapons from the beginning” of the Zulu nation, he added.