S. Africa Police, Youths Clash as Black Students Press Boycotts

Police used rubber bullets and tear gas Wednesday in clashes with black youths in a fresh wave of unrest in various parts of South Africa.

The most serious incidents were reported in townships in the Vaal triangle about 30 miles south of Johannesburg, where large numbers of pupils continued to boycott schools.

A police spokesman said there were several clashes in Bophelong township. Cars were stoned and soft drinks were stolen from a delivery truck. Police used rubber bullets and tear gas to break up crowds numbering in the hundreds.

In nearby Boipatong, blacks stoned a bus, breaking several windows and slightly injuring the driver, the police spokesman said.

A spokesman for the Education Department said children were being intimidated from going to school in the area.

“We have had reports of a fairly chaotic situation in Boipatong and Bophelong. Some of the children who went to school were chased out by others, and last night there was an arson attempt at one of the schools,” he said.

Some schools in the eastern Cape were again deserted Wednesday, and there were reports of intimidation at others.

The police spokesman said a crowd of about 500 youths gathered outside a high school in Fort Beaufort and some of them entered the classrooms and tried to make the students leave. They began singing songs and shouting slogans when police arrived and rubber bullets and tear gas were used, the spokesman said.

Despite the incidents of violence and intimidation, authorities reported that a large percentage of black students have returned to classes after months of boycotting.

Job Schoeman of the Department of Education and Training said that in the Vaal area, about 75% of the 93,000 boycotting students had returned to classes in the past week. That includes all the pupils in Sharpeville and about half those in Sebokeng, two of the worst-hit townships in bloody rioting that broke out in late August.