113 Seized by Police in S. Africa : 7 Blacks Reported Slain as Emergency Powers Take Effect

Police and soldiers arrested 113 anti-apartheid activists and black community leaders before dawn Sunday as sweeping state-of-emergency regulations went into effect in South Africa.

The security forces also sealed off some black townships and conducted searches under broad powers given them over the weekend by President Pieter W. Botha in an effort to restore order after almost a year of sustained civil unrest.

But details of the operations, such as the names of people detained and of towns that were occupied, were kept secret under provisions of the emergency measures.

Police did report that, in a 24-hour period ending late Sunday, seven blacks were shot and killed by security forces during attacks on police patrols or on the homes of black policemen. Unconfirmed reports from black sources put the death toll in these clashes at 12.

Unrest in 3 Areas

Serious unrest was reported in three areas--in Kwathema, a black township southeast of Johannesburg, where two men were shot to death and several injured in a fight with plainclothes police in a bar; near Parys, 75 miles southwest of here in the Orange Free State, where three were killed as officers tried to disperse attacking mobs, and in Zwide, near Port Elizabeth, where two men were fatally shot during a reported attack on a policeman’s home.

The authorities said they used tear gas to disperse mourners at a funeral in the town of Witbank after the mourners stoned police vehicles and passing cars. A soccer match was canceled in Witbank when black youths occupied the playing field before being driven away by police. Five people have died in Witbank during the last week in clashes with police.

Other Incidents Reported

A dozen other incidents were reported around the country but with only a few injuries and arrests.

Rumors were widespread that among the people arrested Sunday were some of the most prominent leaders of the campaign against apartheid, South Africa’s policy of racial separation. Many of these leaders could not be contacted at their homes Sunday, and a spokesman at police headquarters in Pretoria would say only “no comment” when asked whether they had been detained.

Other leaders reportedly went into hiding when word of the government’s plan to declare a state of emergency first circulated Friday.

The Detainees’ Parents Support Committee, which monitors security arrests, said Sunday that “hundreds of popular leaders and democrats have been arrested and many more will follow.” The committee expressed “great fears” for the safety of those being held--who, under the emergency regulations, are denied speedy access to the courts, to attorneys and to members of their families.

Among those detained Sunday, apparently in addition to the 113 arrests announced by a police spokesman, were 22 political activists, mostly members of the left-wing, predominantly white Johannesburg Democratic Action Committee, who were returning by bus from the funeral for four slain black community leaders at Cradock, in eastern Cape province.

Criticism of the emergency regulations continued Sunday, some of it coming even from members of the Afrikaner business community, normally government supporters, who warned that the new curbs may buy some time but that the fundamental causes of black discontent must be resolved quickly.

There were also protests about the scope of the regulations--which authorize arrest and detention for two weeks without warrant or court appearance, unrestricted search and seizure, closing of areas to travel, the takeover or closing of private businesses, curfews and press censorship.

The state of emergency--proclaimed Saturday in 36 of South Africa’s nearly 300 magisterial districts--covers the Johannesburg area, the Vaal River industrial center 50 miles south of here, the industrial Port Elizabeth-Uitenhage area of eastern Cape province, and a scattering of other communities.

Frederik van Zyl Slabbert, leader of the liberal white Progressive Federal Party, called for a special session of Parliament, which adjourned only a month ago, to debate the government’s actions.

Mayor Tom Boya of the black township of Daveyton east of Johannesburg, who is regarded by the government as a political moderate, urged the government to declare its intention to end apartheid, to permit blacks to settle freely in urban areas, to end the segregated school system and to free political prisoners.

Donald Masson, president of the Afrikaanse Handelsinstituut, made up of generally conservative businessmen, said South Africa must move faster and more courageously on broad economic and social reforms to deal with the causes of unrest. Though supporting the curbs, he expressed concern about possible abuse of the security forces’ sweeping new powers.

Bishop Desmond Tutu, a Nobel Prize-winner, called the emergency declaration “an act of desperation” by a government that refuses to negotiate. Black newspaper editor Percy Qoboza, who has been “banned” by South African authorities, was quoted by United Press International as warning: “This step merely legitimizes what has been going on in the townships for some time. They are telling us they are going to shoot their way out of trouble.”

Gen. Johan Coetzee, the national police commissioner, said “law-abiding citizens will not be affected” by the tough measures. The targets of the crackdown, he declared in a television interview, will be “persons who have played an aggravating role in a particular area, and by word or deed, been catalysts in the unrest.”

Coetzee promised that the security forces’ new authority will be used with “great responsibility . . . and considerable circumspection.” He also promised that curfews will be imposed carefully and that “shoot-on-sight” situations will not develop, as blacks say they did in the past.