South Africa Says Arrests Cut Rioting

Police said Wednesday that the arrests of more than 200 black activists a day have reduced rioting this week. The foreign minister vowed that South Africa will not yield to “perpetrators of violence who burn people alive.”

A national police statement said 665 militants were detained in the first three days of a state of emergency that took effect Sunday. Most are black men, involved in 11 months of protest and violence stemming from opposition to apartheid, the system of legalized segregation imposed by the nation’s 4.9 million whites on its 25 million blacks.

The statement said that incidents of property damage, injury and death have declined noticeably in the 36 cities and towns placed under a state of emergency that gives police almost unlimited powers of arrest.

About 475 people have been killed since last September in the widest protest against white rule in South African history. About half were killed by police quelling riots.

Scores of blacks have died in attacks by militants on black town councilors and policemen, who are seen as collaborators of the white government. Many of these victims have been burned to death.

France Recalls Envoy

The police report on arrests during the state of emergency came as France suspended new investment in South Africa and recalled its ambassador to protest what it termed the “repressive” curbs.

Foreign Minister Roelof F. (Pik) Botha said in a statement that widespread foreign criticism of the emergency was ill-informed. He said militants incite the international community against South Africa by presenting themselves as sober-minded advocates of democracy who are deeply worried about black rights.

“The elements that stand for a Marxist dictatorship have intervened” against the government’s racial reform program, he said, in order to “stop the process of change.

“There is too much at stake for all South Africans to allow our future to be determined by perpetrators of violence who burn people alive,” he said.

Police reported at least nine new incidents of arson and about the same number of stone-throwing incidents in the 24 hours ending at 8 p.m. Wednesday. They said police used tear gas, rubber bullets and shotguns to scatter rioters who attacked police vehicles, schools and government buildings in Cape province in the southeast and Transvaal province in the north.

Violence in Cape Province

A police statement said 200 black youths stoned a beer hall in northern Cape province, 500 youths stoned a private vehicle and a school east of Johannesburg and 600 youths stoned a bus west of Johannesburg.

Capt. Jan Calitz, police spokesman in the Cape Town area, said two hand grenades damaged the home of a former black councilor in Guguletu township. It was the eighth grenade attack in the area in recent months.