Tutu to Defy S. African Ban on Funeral Protest

Bishop Desmond Tutu, boldly challenging the South African government, declared Thursday that he will ignore new regulations banning political protest at the funerals of blacks killed in the continuing civil unrest here.

“I appeal to the authorities,” the Nobel Peace laureate said, “please do not try to find points of confrontation and make worse a situation that is already bad. . . . If (you) try to promulgate laws that are unjust, I am going to break these laws.

“If these regulations are not lifted . . . I will speak as I always speak. I will not be told by any secular authorities what gospel I must preach.”

Indoor Rites Ordered

Tutu, the Anglican bishop of Johannesburg, was protesting government orders prohibiting mass funerals for victims of the strife, requiring the rites to be held indoors to limit attendance and forbidding the display of flags, banners or posters, or any discussion of politics. The rules also allow only ordained ministers to speak at services.

At a funeral for three black youths killed in a clash with police at Tumahole, a township near Parys 65 miles south of Johannesburg in the Orange Free State, where the new restrictions do not apply, Tutu said he will speak next Tuesday at a funeral in Daveyton, 20 miles east of here, in defiance of the regulations.

“Please allow us to bury our people who died because of apartheid,” Tutu said in one of his most impassioned appeals. “Don’t rub salt into our wounds. Don’t trample on us. Where else can we speak? We are not allowed into your Parliament. When we want to speak to the state president, he says he does not want to speak to us. And when we try to speak to our people at our funerals, you restrict us.”

The restrictions, imposed by Louis le Grange, the minister of law and order, are intended to prevent the funerals from becoming anti-government rallies, as most have been for the last year, regularly drawing crowds of 50,000 and often leading to new clashes with police.

The three youths buried at Tumahole on Thursday were killed after another funeral for victims of the racial strife, and more than 10,000 people gathered around the community hall for the service and then accompanied the caskets a mile and a half to the graveyard.

Assurances to Business

President Pieter W. Botha, meeting for two hours Thursday with business leaders in Pretoria, the capital, promised to lift the state of emergency as soon as he considers it possible and reaffirmed the government’s commitment to political, economic and social reforms. Business groups had expressed deep concern when Botha declared the state of emergency July 20.

Despite the businessmen’s urging, Botha would only “accept in principle” the need for “a visible and effective dialogue with black leaders” on the country’s future and saw “practical difficulties,” a spokesman for the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Federated Chamber of Industries said afterward.

Earlier this week, Botha refused a request from Tutu for an urgent meeting on the civil unrest and the state of emergency.

A total of 1,329 people have now been detained without charges under the emergency regulations, police reported; 47 have been released.

In Pretoria, a magistrate refused Thursday to grant bail to 22 men, leaders of the United Democratic Front coalition of anti-apartheid groups, who have been charged with high treason, terrorism and murder in the wake of unrest last year. He said he could not overrule the government’s decision not to grant bail on grounds of national security.

Moves Against Boycott

The police, meanwhile, introduced new regulations to end a black consumer boycott and a yearlong class boycott by high school students at Graaff-Reinet, a small sheep-farming community in eastern Cape province.

Under their broad emergency powers, the police ordered all school-age children to return immediately to class or remain at home indoors during school hours.

They also threatened to close black shops if the consumer boycott of white stores continues. Other regulations bar all non-residents from Graaff-Reinet’s black and mixed-race townships. Anyone violating the regulations may be jailed up to 10 days under the emergency decree.

If these measures prove effective, they will be applied to other towns in the eastern Cape, police sources said, and perhaps in the townships around Johannesburg, though they would be more difficult to enforce here.