6 Critics of Apartheid Seized in South Africa

Six prominent anti-apartheid campaigners were arrested today on high treason warrants and security police raided activists’ offices in major cities, police confirmed.

Col. Vic Haynes at headquarters in Pretoria said the six were arrested in the same investigation that led to treason charges against eight other government opponents last year. He said the 14 people now charged with treason, none of them white, will probably be tried together.

The arrests occurred as renewed fighting broke out today between police and residents at the black squatter city of Crossroads, near Cape Town. Police said three more blacks were killed today, bringing to nine the total slain in two days of rioting that left 195 wounded. The death toll in Monday’s rioting was raised to six. (Earlier story, Page 4.)

Removal Protest

The residents were protesting their rumored forced removal, which the government denied was imminent, to another community farther from Cape Town.

Police said the six dissidents arrested in Johannesburg and Durban today were Albertina Sisulu, wife of jailed African National Congress leader Walter Sisulu; Sam Kikine of the South African Allied Workers Union; Isaac Ngcobo, whose affiliation was not immediately known; Dr. Ishmael Mohammed of the Transvaal Indian Congress, and Frank Chikane and Cassim Saloojee, both senior officials of the United Democratic Front anti-apartheid coalition.

The names differed from six names supplied earlier by the law office of Priscilla Jana, who often defends people charged with political offenses. Jana’s office later said others may have been detained for questioning rather than charged with treason.

Broadest Since 1964

A trial of the 14 defendants on treason charges would be one of the most far-reaching cases against opponents of white-minority rule since African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela and seven colleagues were sentenced to life in prison in 1964.

Today’s arrests came three weeks after President Pieter W. Botha offered Mandela freedom on condition that he renounce violence as a method of fighting apartheid. Mandela rejected the offer, saying Botha first must lift the government’s ban on the African National Congress.