S. Africa Blacks Riot, Set Shops, Homes Ablaze

Students set fire to shops, homes and vehicles in a black township near Johannesburg today and fought with police who fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse them, police and witnesses said.

There were no immediate reports of casualties or arrests in Seeisoville Township, located near Kroonstad in the Orange Free State. Police Capt. Johan Fouche said the rioting began when “about a thousand” students poured from a high school and began stoning the building and attacking cars and delivery trucks.

By mid-afternoon, police spokesman Lt. Thomas Jefferson said at national headquarters in Pretoria that the rioting appeared to have been contained but was at “a low simmer.”

Free-lance photographer Mark Peters said after flying in a helicopter over the township that streets were empty. He said that stores were gutted and emptied by looters and that cars were overturned and set on fire.

1,400 More Joined Mob

Fouche said the students marched through the streets of Seeisoville to another high school where about 1,400 students joined the first group and both turned on police.

A resident of a nearby township said: “They burned shops. The mayor’s house, cars, buses and schools. . . . I can see smoke.”

The students set fire to cars and homes owned by teachers and principals and set fire to and stoned homes of blacks who serve on elected community councils, police said. Police responded by firing tear gas and rubber bullets.

The councils are considered tools of the ruling white minority by many of South Africa’s younger, more militant blacks.