Weekend Violence in S. Africa’s Black Townships Leaves 4 Dead

The weekend death toll in South Africa’s black townships rose to four Sunday, with two more blacks killed in separate incidents when police opened fire at groups hurling gasoline bombs, police said.

A police spokesman said one man was killed when police fired shotguns into a crowd throwing gasoline bombs in Queenstown, near East London in eastern Cape province.

A woman died at Burgersdorp in western Cape province when police used shotguns against a group hurling gasoline bombs, the spokesman said, and three other women and a man were injured in the same incident.

Woman Injured in Blast

Police said earlier that two others died in overnight violence and a woman was seriously hurt when a grenade exploded in the black township of Guguletu in the western Cape.

More than 800 people have been killed in the past year as blacks have taken to the streets in protest against the white-minority government’s policy of apartheid, or institutionalized racial segregation.

South African political sources said Sunday that the President’s Council will investigate the 14-month wave of racial unrest. The council is the nation’s highest advisory body and was set up to resolve disputes among the three chambers of Parliament.

Robin Carlisle, an opposition Progressive Federal Party member of the council, said that a proposal for an inquiry made in August died because of a lack of support but that a new motion has been made. “I am extremely satisfied with it,” he said.

Council officials would not comment, but political commentators said the discussions are likely to focus on one of the basic causes of the violence, the lack of participation in government by South Africa’s disenfranchised, 24-million-member black majority.

President Pieter W. Botha last week proposed giving blacks a voice on the council.