24 Whites, Three Blacks Arrested in S. Africa Protest

Police on Saturday arrested 24 white and three black women, including three Roman Catholic nuns, who had gathered at a Soweto police station to protest the army presence in black townships, witnesses said.

Witnesses also reported that soldiers in Soweto, the black township outside Johannesburg, fired tear gas at stone-throwing black mourners returning from the funeral of a 6-year-old boy who reportedly died fleeing security forces.

Areas around Cape Town were reported quiet Saturday, the first day that a state of emergency was in force there. Police said they shot dead two blacks in rioting near Cape Town late Friday.

White Cape Town residents, nervous about anti-apartheid riots that have spilled into their neighborhoods, flooded police switchboards Saturday with anxious phone calls about blaring sirens, only to be told the noise came from vintage rescue equipment in a mid-morning parade.

Imposed in July

The state of emergency affected 36 communities when imposed July 21. President Pieter W. Botha withdrew the decree in six areas Thursday night, but a day later extended it to the Cape Town area, where at least 60 people have been reported killed in recent rioting.

Emergency rule empowers police to arrest without warrant, impose curfews, seize property, seal off areas and restrict news coverage.

Extending the emergency to Cape Town shows that Botha “cannot govern our country,” said the United Democratic Front, the largest multiracial group opposed to apartheid. More than 4,000 activists have been imprisoned since July 21, most of them supporters of the front.

The arrested women gathered in silence outside Soweto’s Moroka Police Station at mid-morning. They delivered a statement to the police demanding that the army be withdrawn from riot-torn black communities, according to a colleague who was not arrested, Ethel Walt.

Walt said the statement read, “We believe that the sons of Africa should not fight one another.”

The women belong to no established anti-apartheid organization, “but some have sons in the army and some have children growing up,” she said.

The women were arrested when they defied police orders to leave within three minutes.