Teacher Flees Black Student Mob in S. Africa

Hundreds of black students in Soweto today mobbed a teacher accused of being a government informant and tried to set him aflame. The teacher escaped in his car, its tires slashed.

Soldiers in 15 armored personnel carriers descended on the high school in the black township near Johannesburg after the incident, but most of the 1,000 students had raced away from the scene before the soldiers arrived, reporters said.

On Tuesday, police arrested 400 students at the school but later released most of them.

“We want to burn (the teacher) alive,” said one student, who refused to give his name. He said the teacher had reported class boycotts to police.

Police reported four new deaths across the country, bringing the number of people killed in riots and clashes with police since September to at least 616.

In the East London township of Duncan Village, 500 miles south of Johannesburg, police said they shot and killed a black youth who was throwing rocks and that a railroad policeman shot and killed a black man who was part of a group gasoline-bombing his home.

Houses Burned

At least six people have been killed in two days of rioting in Duncan. The homes of six black members of the local council--considered by radicals to be stooges of the white minority government--were burned.

Ten people were arrested at Witwatersrand University today, where hundreds of black and white students conducting a weeklong boycott of classes clashed with whip-wielding police.

A university spokesman said a bomb exploded in an elevator at the school at 3 a.m., but no injuries were reported and the spokesman described the damage as minimal.

Bishop Desmond Tutu addressed a rally of more than 1,000 students at the university. The Nobel Peace Prize winner predicted that political reforms due to be announced Thursday by President P. W. Botha will not shift the main structure of apartheid, under which the country’s 5 million whites govern 24 million blacks, who are voteless.

In the black township of Brandfort, police guarded the gutted home of Winnie Mandela, wife of South Africa’s top jailed black leader, Nelson Mandela.

The Mandelas met in the prison where he is held, fueling speculation that Mandela’s release will be announced by Botha on Thursday.