(4 May 1996) Natural Sound
A protest march by thousands of Zulu nationalists through the streets of downtown Durban turned to chaos after shots were fired.
At least nine people, including several police officers and a man police say fired on the crowd, were shot and wounded.
Police, who shot the suspect, said it was not immediately clear whether the attack was politically motivated.
The rally began peacefully as thousands of Zulus converged on the streets of Durban to protest a government ban on them carrying their traditional weapons in public.
About 3-thousand Inkatha Freedom Party members gathered for Saturday's march.
Defying the ban, they carried the clubs, spears and knives the ANC-led central government has outlawed.
The Zulu nationalist Inkatha party says Zulus would be emasculated without their "cultural weapons" and has called the ban a provocation by its main rival the A-N-C.
The African National Congress has engaged in a decades-old war for control of the Zulu homeland in KwaZulu-Natal province.
The A-N-C says the weapons ban, which covers firearms as well as spears, was needed to quell violence.
But the peaceful protest rally erupted into chaos when shots rang out.
A police spokesman said police shot back when they were fired on by a man hiding behind a vehicle, injuring the man in the leg.
Police said two other attackers then began firing, one with an automatic rifle but they then escaped.
Police believe the unidentified attackers had been lying in wait for the Inkatha Freedom Party marchers and their police escort.
One police officer was shot in the back and another officer in both hands while a marcher was shot in the leg.
Two other people were shot and injured.
The violence comes as tension between Inkatha and the A-N-C is rising.
It is now only four weeks before scheduled local elections which are being seen as a showdown between Zulu nationalist Inkatha and the ruling African National Congress.
In the run-up to the polls, there has been an attack on the Zulu royal family and a police station in Kwamashu was stormed.
Inkatha wants autonomy for the province it controls and accuses the A-N-C of trying to dilute Zulu values and culture.
The rest of the country held local elections last year, but they were delayed in KwaZulu-Natal because of the violence.
The A-N-C has called for a further delay saying fighting and electoral fraud would make a fair vote impossible.
President Nelson Mandela, seen here at the unveiling in Soweto of a tombstone for A-N-C's hero and Communist Party leader Joe Slovo - has called a special cabinet meeting for Monday to discuss the question.
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20 июл 2015
