S. Africa to Allow Black Workers More Freedom of Movement Among Its Cities

Blacks with permission to live and work in South African cities will soon be allowed to move from one to another under a liberalization announced Monday in the country’s apartheid system of racial segregation.

The change, one of a number of recent reforms undertaken by the minority white regime to moderate the harshness of apartheid, will let black workers move from city to city to pursue job opportunities. At present, such moves are generally prohibited by laws intended to restrict the black presence in nominally white urban areas.

The new legislation was introduced in Parliament on Monday by the ruling National Party, and its passage is considered a formality. The legislation will also allow blacks to live in different cities while accumulating the 10 or 15 years of urban work needed to qualify for permanent urban status, which in turn allows them to bring their families from impoverished rural areas.

Important Steps

Outlining the changes, which would have been have been fiercely opposed by conservative whites here five years ago as a retreat from the policy of “whites-only” cities, government spokesmen described them as important steps toward freedom of movement for the country’s 26 million blacks, half of whom live in urban areas. About 4 million blacks have urban status, mostly through birth in the black ghettos that surround most cities.

However, Sheena Duncan, national president of the Black Sash, a liberal, predominantly white organization that closely monitors government efforts to restrict the flow of rural blacks to the cities, described the changes as disappointing. She said the basic apartheid system of “influx control” remains in effect without any fundamental change.

In a related move, the government said that whites, Indians and Coloreds (people of mixed race) will no longer have to obtain permits to enter black areas, including the urban ghetto townships. In the past, white members of anti-apartheid groups, as well as journalists, have occasionally been prosecuted for not having proper permits and fined as much as $250.

Woman Seriously Hurt

South African police, meanwhile, reported that a 50-year-old white nurse, Gertina Alletta de Lange, was seriously injured Monday on her way to work when her car was stopped by black youths east of Johannesburg near Duduza township, the scene of unrest over the weekend.

The woman was dragged from the car and stoned, police said, and the auto was then overturned and set on fire. She is reported in critical condition with severe head injuries.

Several other white motorists were also injured, though less seriously, when their cars were stoned in the same area Monday in what police said appeared to be the most concerted attacks upon whites since major unrest began here nine months ago.

Of more than 400 persons who have died in the disturbances, only one--an infant whose skull was crushed by a rock thrown at his mother’s car--was white. However, a number of whites have been seriously injured in recent incidents.

In other developments Monday, nine demonstrators were arrested outside the Natal province Supreme Court in Pietermaritzburg, where 16 leading anti-apartheid activists, officials of the multiracial United Democratic Front and an affiliated labor union, went on trial on treason charges. The case, the biggest political trial in South Africa in 25 years, was adjourned until July after the defense requested more details on the government case.

A second treason trial, in Johannesburg, was also adjourned until later in the year after three of the 14 defendants pleaded guilty to either belonging to the outlawed African National Congress or to “furthering its aims.”

The remaining 11 defendants, mostly community activists and trade-union organizers from Soweto, Johannesburg’s growing black suburb, pleaded innocent.