Top Cleric Arrested in South Africa : Boesak Seized, Freed in Civil Disobedience; Zulus Quiet Durban

The Rev. Allan Boesak, a leading anti-apartheid campaigner and the president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, was arrested Saturday for civil disobedience as he tried, in defiance of police orders, to attend the Cape Town funeral of a teen-ager killed in South Africa’s continuing unrest.

At the same time, four days of black rioting in Durban, in which at least 56 people died, appeared to have cooled after Zulu warriors established an uneasy peace in and around the port city. However, tensions remained high in several outlying townships in the Durban area after renewed firebomb attacks.

Boesak, a founder of the United Democratic Front, the broad multiracial coalition of 650 anti-apartheid groups, was detained with 18 other clergymen and student leaders as they tried to enter Guguletu, a black ghetto township outside Cape Town, for the funeral of Sithembele Mathiso.

Kneeling in Roadway

When police and an armored car blocked their path, Boesak and the others knelt in the roadway to pray and were arrested--as they had expected to be--under a 1945 law permitting police to bar non-residents from black townships to maintain order during times of tension. The arrests differed from most others under South Africa’s state of emergency, as they were carried out with formal charges rather than by using summary police power.

The protesters--singing “We Shall Overcome” and linking arms--were taken to a nearby police station. Later, they were released by a magistrate on $50 bail each, in a case certain to prove a test of wills between the government and the anti-apartheid movement.

Later, six policemen and a CBS television technician were wounded, none seriously, when a grenade was thrown at police trying to disperse about 150 mourners following Mathiso’s funeral.

Religion on Their Side

Boesak’s arrest was the latest in a series of confrontations between clergymen and the government over apartheid, South Africa’s system of racial separation, and church leaders now appear ready to confront the regime with acts of civil disobedience when they feel that they have religion clearly on their side.

“As ministers of the Gospel, we will not be told by the government what to preach, how to carry out our duties,” Boesak said after he was released. “We all had gone to Guguletu as a matter of conscience, to show solidarity with the people. It should shame this government, which professes to be Christian, that we were prevented from doing so.”

Mathiso, 17, was shot by the police in a clash July 29, and the area has remained very tense since his death. At police request, a magistrate had barred anti-government demonstrations and political speeches at the funeral.

The grenade attack on the police after Mathiso’s funeral was similar to a number of other recent assaults in the Cape Town area. A deputy Cabinet minister was wounded in one such attack, and police now appear to have become the principal targets.

Police sources theorize that the underground military wing of the outlawed African National Congress is testing the ability of its armed agents to operate against government targets in an urban environment and the reaction of the black community to such attacks.

Meanwhile, the recent intense violence in black townships around Durban diminished significantly Saturday after four days of fighting, looting and arson by thousands of youths.

Zulu warriors, armed with spears, shields and clubs, had moved into riot-torn Kwamashu and Umlazi on Friday on orders from Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi, the Zulu leader, to restore order and find those responsible for the disturbances.

Brought by buses from outlying areas of Kwazulu, the self-governing tribal homeland, the Zulus fanned out quickly through the two large communities--Umlazi has a population of 300,000 and Kwamashu 500,000--attacking youths still engaged in arson and looting.

These clashes continued into early Saturday morning, residents said, and more than 100 black youths were reported to have been severely beaten by the impis, the Zulus’ traditional military units, after being found in what one impi leader described as “suspicious circumstances.”

Zulus, armed with clubs, could be found at virtually every intersection of the troubled townships. Groups of older men, loyal to Buthelezi and members of his Inkatha political organization, went house to house, looking for teen-agers who might have joined the recent violence.

For many of them, punishment was a swift and harsh beating. Larger groups, summoned by echoing blasts on kudu horns and formed into groups of 2,000 and more, moved along the main roads in a show of Inkatha’s strength.

Both townships were quiet by noon Saturday, as was Inanda, where longtime Indian residents and shopkeepers were burned out and driven away earlier in the week by black youths.

However, tension returned later in the day, as several more stores and houses were set afire, and thousands of Indians, armed with pistols, rifles and shotguns, formed vigilante groups in nearby areas to protect their property from further attack.

By then, the police and army had finally mobilized enough troops to send a 30-vehicle procession of armored cars through the black and Asian townships in a display of government determination to keep order.

Honest-Broker Role

Inkatha also began talks with representatives of the United Democratic Front and the moderate white opposition Progressive Federal Party--which offered its services as an honest broker--on ways to restore the peace that Durban had enjoyed through a year of unrest in much of the rest of the country.

Buthelezi’s group plans a rally at Inanda today to persuade blacks to welcome back the Indian families that had lived in the community for more than 50 years and to try to convince Indians that it is safe to return.

Inkatha supporters clashed with members of the United Democratic Front on Wednesday night at Umlazi, south of Durban, after a memorial service for Victoria Mxenge, a prominent black civil rights lawyer, who was slain 10 days ago and who will be buried today. Inkatha was angered by the holding of the service in what it regards as its territory.

National police headquarters in Pretoria announced Saturday that since a nationwide state of emergency was proclaimed in districts embracing more than 60 black townships around Johannesburg and in eastern Cape province, a total of 1,609 people have been detained without charges and that of those, 909 are still being held.