JOHANNESBURG, July 17, 2008 (AFP) - A South African school is to be renamed on Friday after a militant supporter of the now ruling African National Congress who was hanged in 1986 for a bomb attack in a busy shopping mall.

Lovu primary school in Amanzimtoti, near the eastern city of Durban, is to be renamed after Andrew Zondo who was executed for an attack in 1985 in which three children and two adults were killed, the local council said in a statement.

After a lengthy debate, local residents and the schoool authority finally chose Zondo from a long list of names, it added.

A nearby creche has already been named after Willem van Wyk, a two-year-old victim of the bombing which took place when a device placed in a bin exploded.

'This is all for reconciliation purposes. This is not a black-white thing. This is about honouring people who did what they did in line of duty,' Lovu principal Mzwandile Sibiya told the Durban-based Mercury newspaper.

'Even Zondo apologised for what he did, and Willem van Wyk became involved in the struggle without even knowing it. This is not racial at all.'

Zondo, who was aged 20 when he was convicted, apologised to the relations of the victims before he was hanged in 1986.

Since the fall of the apartheid regime in 1994, towns, public places and streets have been renamed to honour members of the ANC which was at the vanguard of the struggle against whites-only rule.

Although many of the changes have been uncontroversial, the main opposition Democratic Alliance warned the tribute to Zondo would undermine reconciliation, especially as Friday's renaming ceremony will take place on the same day that former ANC leader Nelson Mandela turns 90.

'The insensitivity of renaming stands in strong contrast to the Nelson Mandela birthday celebrations, where all the nation joins together,' said DA spokesman Roger Burrows.

'The name of Zondo is so divisive and reflects on an incident which can only harm community relations in our country.'

The ANC, now the ruling party, initially championed peaceful struggle against the apartheid racist regime but later turned to armed struggle following a bloody repression of protests.

Mandela, the country's first black president, founded and headed the Umkhonto weSizwe (Spear of the Nation), the armed wing of the ANC.

After the ANC's victory in the first multi-racial elections in 1994, the party apologised over the death of civilian victims killed by its armed wing.