South Africa Blacks Seize Goods, Enforce Boycott; 1 Killed

Hundreds of blacks stopped cars Friday and seized goods bought in defiance of the “Black Christmas” boycott of white stores, and soldiers killed one young man among the enforcers, witnesses said.

About eight armored vehicles arrived in the Diepkloof section of Soweto to break up bands of youths confiscating clothes, food and Christmas presents from scores of black commuters coming home from nearby white Johannesburg.

It was the heaviest known enforcement of the boycott, which has slashed business at white stores in and around Johannesburg and Pretoria.

Boycott organizers have put out word that weddings, pop concerts and other celebrations should be canceled or kept low-key to show solidarity with the suffering of blacks through 15 months of anti-apartheid rioting, in which nearly 1,000 people have died.

One witness said food and other goods were scattered over streets in Diepkloof, and said residents reported boycott enforcers operating elsewhere in the black township of more than 1.5 million.

Youths stopped virtually every car and taxi at impromptu roadblocks, destroying products bought at white-owned stores.

“All the streets are just littered with groceries and other things brought from town, and hundreds of youths are lining up in the streets, carrying stones and stoning any car that refuses to stop,” said one resident by telephone before the troops arrived at about 5 p.m.

In dispersing the crowds, soldiers shot dead one man who appeared to be in his early 20s, another resident said. The body was left in the street, guarded by soldiers, he said.