S. Africa Police Blamed for Misleading Shooting Report

The national police commissioner of South Africa testified Wednesday that the police were to blame for the misleading first statement issued by the South African government on the fatal shooting of 19 blacks near Uitenhage last month.

Trying to dispel suspicions of an attempted police cover-up of the incident and to absolve Louis le Grange, the minister for law and order, of charges of having lied to Parliament about it, Gen. Johan Coetzee told a judicial inquiry that the original statement was based on incomplete and inaccurate reports. The police, he said, accept responsibility for these reports.

After the March 21 incident, Le Grange told Parliament that two police squads had been surrounded by a mob of 4,000 blacks throwing stones, bricks and firebombs and that the policemen had opened fire as a last resort. More than 35 people were wounded in the fusillade, in addition to the 19 killed.

Police testimony before Supreme Court Justice Donald D.V. Kannemeyer over the past two weeks in Uitenhage has shown that the police fired at virtually point-blank range with pistols, rifles and shotguns after a single stone was thrown and without giving a clear warning to the crowd.

Coetzee said he was initially given conflicting accounts of the incident, including information that firebombs had been thrown, and was unable to clarify them before Le Grange spoke to Parliament.

“The blame lies with the police,” Coetzee said Wednesday of the now-discredited government statement. “The minister was not in possession of established facts, but the facts made available to the best of the (police) machinery’s ability.”

Le Grange has come under heavy criticism since the Uitenhage incident, both for the police action against the crowd and for his statement to Parliament.

Opposition parties, including the liberal white Progressive Federal Party and all the parties in the Indian and Colored (mixed-race) houses of the tricameral Parliament, have demanded Le Grange’s resignation.

President Pieter W. Botha has continued to defend Le Grange and his tough approach to the unrest.

“Unless police can deal with the unrest effectively,” Coetzee testified Wednesday, “all (the government’s reform) initiatives on social, political and economic levels would be negated.”

The police commissioner disclosed, however, that Le Grange himself was responsible for the order that police around the country were to use military assault rifles and similar heavy weapons to “eliminate” those believed responsible for throwing firebombs and acid bombs at policemen. Le Grange saw such attacks as “the equivalent of attempted murder,” Coetzee said, and had authorized the tougher response.

Coetzee added that although he had approved this order, he would have preferred use of the phrase “rendered harmless” in place of “eliminated,” which he acknowledged gave the public a harsher impression of the police.

Unrest continued around the country Wednesday, according to the police, but at a relatively low level. Arson attacks were reported on schools, delivery trucks and government cars in eastern Cape province. A police car and a policeman’s home were set afire in the black township of Katlehong east of Johannesburg.

More firebombings, again of schools and trucks, took place in the diamond mining center of Kimberley, according to police headquarters in Pretoria. The police said they used tear gas, rubber bullets and birdshot to disperse the crowds in these areas; no injuries were reported.

The police at Uitenhage, near Port Elizabeth on the southern coast, are bracing for the funeral this weekend of the 19 who were killed March 21. Black community leaders, churches and civil rights groups have asked the police to stay away to avoid further incidents. Last weekend, police fired volleys of tear gas to disperse a crowd of 15,000 at another funeral that they felt had grown too large.