Tutu Defuses Tension Over S. Africa Funeral

Bishop Desmond Tutu defused a confrontation in this black township today by negotiating with authorities to allow a funeral for a slain black girl to proceed after police had ordered those attending it to disperse.

Soldiers and police arrived in armored riot vehicles during the service and ordered the crowd of about 1,000 to leave and not to make the customary march to the cemetery for the burial.

Police announced in English and Afrikaans that the gathering was illegal under a 17-day-old state of emergency decree.

Tutu pleaded with young people present not to provoke a clash with police. “You are young. I would urge you, don’t do anything which will give the system a chance to hurt you,” he said.

Troops Draw Boos

While the crowd booed the troops, Tutu spoke with officers and persuaded them to arrange for government buses to take the crowd to the grave site.

Hundreds of police ringed the cemetery in Daveyton, pointing rifles at the chanting crowd, and more stood at every street corner along the way.

“You contributed to the struggle. We don’t mourn, we are mobilizing,” the mourners sang in memory of Elizabeth Kumalo, 16, shot to death by police after another funeral in the township east of Johannesburg.

When the crowd returned to the family home after the burial, a police commandant shouted, “You must disperse!”

Tutu, in flowing purple robes, walked through the dusty road and urged stragglers to leave.

Tutu Charisma Noted

Later, the Rev. James Mabaso, an Anglican priest, said of Tutu, “He just has something. . . . If he had not been here today, there would have been still more victims.”

Tutu, winner of the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize, acknowledged that his presence had helped but said, “The trouble is I can’t go to every single funeral.”

Tutu, the black Anglican bishop of Johannesburg, told police Col. G. H. Nel, who was flanked by six armored personnel carriers, “Well, you enforced some totally unreasonable laws in quite a reasonable way.”

President P. W. Botha has forbidden mass funerals as part of the state of emergency he declared July 21 after a year of racial violence in which at least 500 blacks died.

Another funeral earlier in the day for another girl killed in the same incident was peaceful.

Tear Gas Incident

Meanwhile, a lawyer reported that police this morning broke into the home of Winnie Mandela, wife of jailed African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela, in the rural town of Brandfort and fired tear gas into the house.

Some people were arrested, and a 20-month-old baby girl, Mandela’s granddaughter, could not be found. Winnie Mandela was in Johannesburg at the time and left immediately for Brandfort to determine what happened and why, a spokesman said.

Reporters in Durban said rock-throwing clashes broke out in black townships there today, and there were unconfirmed reports that police shot and killed one youth and used tear gas to disperse other boycotting students.

Incidents also occurred in Kwa-Mashu and Umlazi, where black civil rights lawyer Victoria Mxenge was slain by unknown attackers last Thursday. Students have boycotted classes for two days to protest her death.