Police Quell S. Africa Protest : 600 Object to Jailings, State of Emergency

Riot police swinging clubs charged into a crowd and broke up an anti-apartheid candlelight protest by 600 white and mixed-race demonstrators in a white Cape Town suburb, officials said today.

Three people--two whites and a mixed-race, or Colored, man--were arrested during the melee overnight, police said. No injuries were immediately reported.

Since the state of emergency was first invoked in South Africa on July 21, more than 6,500 people have been arrested. About 1,200 were still being held in jail as of today.

The candlelight demonstration took place in the white Cape Town suburb of Sea Point, where about 600 people joined in the peaceful protest against the jailings and the state of emergency.

After the demonstrators marched up and down the seafront promenade, riot police charged the crowd when the protesters began chanting “Mandela, Mandela” for Nelson Mandela, the jailed leader of the outlawed black African National Congress.

In another development, the organizers of a black consumers’ boycott in Pretoria called on militant blacks to stop harassing shoppers.

The consumer boycott, which has been extended to segregated suburbs around Johannesburg and surrounding towns, is aimed at an austere “Black Christmas” without trimmings, toys or festivities.