S. Africa Outlaws Meetings by Anti-Apartheid Groups : Police Quell Rioting in Black Areas

The white minority government today outlawed meetings by all 29 anti-apartheid groups in riot-torn areas of the Cape and Transvaal provinces in a crackdown condemned by clerics as an “act of desperation.”

The latest crackdown on the black opposition came as police used tear gas and rubber bullets to quell rioting mobs in black townships across the country, where 13 months of unrest has claimed at least 270 lives.

In the black township of Graaff Reinet, an area covered by the ban, police today said one man was killed and another injured when mobs of up to 300 attacked black town council members and torched their homes and automobiles.

Law and Order Minister Louis le Grange announced the ban on indoor meetings of the nation’s largest opposition organization, the United Democratic Front, and 28 other dissident groups until June 30.

Ban Since 1976 Riots

All outdoor meetings except sport and religious gatherings have been outlawed in South Africa since 1976, when yearlong riots in the country’s black townships claimed about 600 lives.

The three-month ban covers black townships of the Cape and Transvaal provinces around the southern coastal city of Port Elizabeth, including Uitenhage, where police shot and killed at least 19 blacks marching to a funeral March 21.

The Rev. Beyers Naude, leader of the South African Council of Churches, condemned the ban, saying it “can only lead to further expressions of conflict.

“It is clear that this is an act of desperation on the part of the government to stem the tide of liberation,” Naude said.

‘Regional . . . Emergency’

United Democratic Front spokesman Patrick Lekota called the ban “a regional declaration of a state of emergency,” and Sheena Duncan, president of the Black Sash human rights group, said police will resort to tear gas and rubber bullets more often to enforce the ban.

The ban came two days after President Pieter W. Botha said he has given instructions “for appropriate measures to restore and maintain law and order.”

In Durban, Albertina Sisulu, president of the United Democratic Front, and seven other leading anti-apartheid activists appeared in Natal Province Supreme Court, where they and eight other defendants are charged with treason.

Dozens of supporters passed through security checks to get into the courtroom. Many wore the green, gold and black colors of the outlawed African National Congress, and chanted anti-apartheid slogans.

Apartheid is South Africa’s system of racial segregation, which denies voting and other rights to the country’s black majority of 22 million. There are about 5 million whites.