200 Arrested in S. African Protest Over Killing of 19

More than 200 people, including several of South Africa’s leading churchmen, were arrested Tuesday in Cape Town as they marched to Parliament to present a petition protesting the fatal shooting of 19 blacks by police last week and calling for an end to the country’s system of racial separation.

The march followed a memorial service for those killed last Thursday near Port Elizabeth and was joined by hundreds as it moved through central Cape Town in a reflection of the deepening grief and anger here over the incident and the government’s handling of recent racial unrest, witnesses said.

The first such protest in 25 years, the Cape Town march may also mark a return to civil disobedience by the anti-apartheid movement here--a development that could have dramatic and far-reaching consequences.

Among the 239 arrested were the Rev. Allan Boesak, president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches; the Rev. Beyers Naude, general secretary of the South African Council of Churches, and Anglican, Roman Catholic and Methodist church leaders.

All were charged with violating a law prohibiting unauthorized demonstrations near Parliament and were released, pending arraignment in court later this week or payment of a $25 fine with an admission of guilt. Police plans to charge them with holding “an illegal gathering” in violation of the country’s security laws, a far more serious offense, were dropped.

“We demand full citizenship for all the people of South Africa, equal participation of all in the central government and freedom from economic exploitation,” the marchers declared in the petition they wanted to present.

Violence, meanwhile, flared again in the black townships around the industrial center of Port Elizabeth and at Uitenhage, where the 19 shootings took place as the victims headed for a funeral service for victims of earlier unrest.

Early Tuesday, two people, both Asians, were killed when a mob of about 200, many wielding machetes, stopped their car and dragged them out, according to police reports. One was hacked to death and his body burned in the street as the attackers danced in front of South African television cameras; the other man died later in a hospital from his wounds.

Police repeatedly used tear gas in Kwanobuhle, Langa, Kwazakele and New Brighton, all in the Port Elizabeth area, to disperse crowds of 700 to 900 that reportedly set fire to schools, beer halls, shops, government offices and buses and delivery trucks. Birdshot and rubber bullets were also used, police said. Damage was extensive, they reported, but casualties are unknown and only a few arrests were made.

In Langa and Kwanobuhle, the focus of the original unrest around Port Elizabeth last week, tension remained high Tuesday, though most workers had returned to their jobs after a three-day strike. Heavily armed contingents of police still ring the two townships, but they were unable to prevent the continuing attacks on those blacks seen as collaborating with the white-minority regime.

Inquiry Starts Today

A judicial inquiry into last week’s killings--in which at least 35 were seriously wounded and 24 are still missing, in addition to the dead--begins today with Supreme Court Justice Donald D.V. Kannemeyer starting his investigation with a visit to Langa.

The police version of the incident is that officers fired in self-defense after their armored cars were surrounded by a mob of 3,000 to 4,000 people throwing stones, bricks and several firebombs. Blacks, however, say that the police opened fire without warning on a funeral procession caught between the two armored vehicles and continued shooting as people tried to leave.

On Tuesday, Louis le Grange, the minister for law and order, visited the area for the first time but did not meet with residents. The last local official, T.B. Kinikini, a town counselor and undertaker, was killed over the weekend with his sons after being accused of collaborating with the minority white government here. Thus, Le Grange said, there was no one for him to talk with.

Le Grange is under attack from almost every direction for the police action, but he has received support from President Pieter W. Botha. In their petition to Parliament, the protesters declared: “We say loudly and clearly we do not believe the police or Minister Le Grange when they give us their version of the tragic events. We do not believe the police fired ‘in self-defense.’ ”

The petition specifically asked that the police and army be kept out of black townships, that funerals be allowed without police interference, that the government speak with “leaders chosen by the people” and that present town councils be abolished.

Candle Lit for the Dead

“We will not stop resisting until the people in this country are free and we all live in peace and justice,” Boesak said during the memorial service at Cape Town’s Buitenkant Methodist Church, lighting a candle for those who have died “in the struggle for South Africa.”

As the multiracial congregation of nearly 1,000 left the church in early afternoon for the march to Parliament a few blocks away, hundreds joined them. Walking silently in threes, their arms linked, they formed more of a procession than a protest demonstration.

After 15 minutes, police halted the group, and Boesak, Naude and the Rev. Abel Hendricks, a past president of the South African Methodist Church, knelt on the pavement, prayed and then sang hymns before they were arrested. There were a few minor scuffles but no violence. About a quarter of the marchers stayed to be arrested after police warnings.

Not since 1960, when police using machine guns and rifles killed 69 blacks at Sharpeville, have opponents of apartheid used civil disobedience as a tactic. They ruled it out, they usually explained, because South African police were ruthless, there was no constitution to protect them and no national conscience to appeal to.

The greater involvement of whites in the anti-apartheid movement may change this attitude. Of the 239 arrested Tuesday, 44 were white, according to police, and 171 were Coloreds (those of mixed race), while 24 were black.