S. African Hospital Fires Nearly 1,000 Nurses, Others in Strike

Nearly 1,000 student nurses and other hospital workers were dismissed here Friday from Baragwanath Hospital, South Africa’s largest, as a crippling strike by black employees went into its third day.

In an effort to break the strike, the Transvaal provincial administration ordered the dismissals of more than 700 student nurses, virtually the whole first- and second-year classes, and of 200 non-medical support personnel. The government warned that several hundred more workers would be fired if they did not return to work.

Police arrested about 70 more workers outside the hospital Friday, charging them with participating in an illegal strike; on Thursday, 848 were arrested and released to appear in court in two weeks.

A planned staff meeting to discuss the situation was canceled when police banned it under the state of emergency, and a second meeting by the student nurses was thwarted when hospital authorities locked them in their dormitories under armed guard and refused to let them out, even for meals at the cafeteria. Declaring the hospital an “unrest area,” police again forced journalists to leave the vicinity.

The government’s actions appeared only to harden the resolve of the workers. Nursing aides and more non-medical staff were reported to have joined the strike Friday afternoon, seeking pay increases and improved working conditions.

3 Blacks Killed

In the country’s continuing civil strife, three more blacks were reported killed. One man was shot and killed and four others were wounded when a policeman fired upon a group of blacks attacking workers who had taken their jobs during a prolonged strike at a tire factory at Howick in Natal province.

Another died after being wounded two days ago when police fired shotguns at a stone-throwing mob in the eastern Cape town of Stutterheim, and the body of the third victim was found at Stutterheim under a pile of burning tires, the apparent victim of a ritual execution as a suspected government collaborator. Police headquarters reported incidents of unrest in more than 15 communities around the country.

Police said that during the past week they had detained 314 more people under state-of-emergency regulations permitting them to hold people without charge indefinitely; they said 1,420 are currently detained under the regulations.

Members of Parliament visiting two prisons heard complaints from detainees that they had been beaten and tortured during interrogations by the police, but a Supreme Court justice dismissed a request that he order the beatings to end, saying the matter was not urgent and could be heard routinely.

The government disclosed meanwhile that it had prohibited Trevor Manuel, a top official of the United Democratic Front coalition of anti-apartheid groups, from participating in any meetings, public or private, for the next five years, effectively banning him from politics under the country’s several security laws. Timing of the action puzzled Manuel’s lawyers, as the Cape Town activist was detained last month and is in solitary confinement.

Debt Moratorium Extended

South African officials confirmed Friday that the country will not resume payments in January on its $24 billion in foreign debts as it promised when it declared a moratorium in August. Fritz Leutwiler, a Swiss banker hired by South Africa to work out a repayment plan with creditors, said agreements had not yet been reached on the rescheduling and further negotiations are necessary.

In the Baragwanath strike, the minority white government is now faced with a serious dilemma: Without its 8,000 trained and experienced personnel, the 2,700-bed hospital, which serves Soweto’s 2 million black residents, cannot be operated efficiently and safely. But to satisfy the hospital workers’ demands, authorities feel, would only encourage similar strikes across the country.

“You can call it hard-nosed, but we will not tolerate any strike action, whatever the costs,” Don Kirstein, a provincial government spokesman, said Friday. “We have dismissed several hundred already, and we will dismiss more as the situation requires.”

The strike began when non-medical personnel--cooks, janitors, porters, laundry workers and others--were told that their demand for pay increases would not be considered before March, and that there would probably be no raises before July. Most are earning $44 to $60 a month, plus room and board, and are seeking increases of $35 or $40; their last raises came in 1983.