South African Militants Kill Youth Whose Holiday Party Violated ‘Black Christmas’

Vigilantes stabbed and then burned to death a young man here early Tuesday for violating a ban on holiday parties imposed by black militants who have decreed that this Christmas should be a period of mourning for those killed in more than a year of protests against the apartheid system.

Witnesses and relatives said that Robert Zithulele Mzizi, 20, had played host to a weekend party for friends at his home in the Orlando East section of Soweto, the sprawling black city outside Johannesburg, in defiance of the Soweto Consumer Boycott Committee’s demand last week that all holiday parties be canceled in observance of a “black Christmas.”

“He wasn’t a sellout--he just wanted a party,” a sobbing girlfriend who identified herself only as Mimi said Tuesday. “He was in the struggle, but do we have to struggle all the time?”

Three other blacks were burned to death here over a three-day weekend, according to police. The charred corpse of a man apparently suspected of being a police informer was found Tuesday afternoon. On Saturday, a 59-year-old man and his wife, 50, were killed when their house was set on fire by youths who accused them of hiding their son after he had allegedly murdered a friend.

Police also reported two deaths in civil unrest elsewhere in the country. The body of a 13-year-old boy riddled with shotgun pellets was found Tuesday night in the Crossroads squatter settlement outside Cape Town. A police spokesman said the victim “must have been a stone-thrower,” but added that the death would be investigated. In Mamelodi, one of the black ghetto townships outside South Africa’s capital of Pretoria, police found the body of a man shot last week as a suspected enforcer of the boycott.

The “black Christmas” campaign proclaimed by young militants in the Witwatersrand region around Johannesburg has deeply divided the black community. At least seven people have now died as a result of it, but Mzizi was the first killed by youths enforcing the boycott measures. The others were suspected enforcers killed by police or reportedly by vigilantes working for storekeepers hurt by the boycott.

Members of the local “Comrades”--as militant black youths call themselves--had tried Sunday to break up the Mzizi party, which began Friday night, but were driven off, according to relatives. The fighting continued sporadically Monday as each side gathered reinforcements.

In the hours before dawn Tuesday, more than 400 militants returned to Mzizi’s home. Finding him alone, they chased him through the neighborhood, stabbed and stoned him and, after dousing him with gasoline, set him alight in the middle of the street.

“We begged them not to kill him because they already had hurt him very badly,” Irene Mzizi, his aunt, said, “but they dragged him into the street and set him on fire. They were in a rage; they were determined to kill someone.”

Her son, Lucky, and another youth are now in hiding after escaping from the militant youths, she said, and two more teen-agers are in the hospital after being stabbed in the fighting.

‘Struggle for People’

“Robert and Lucky did not see what right the Comrades had to cancel a party that had been planned for months and months,” the aunt said. “The boys are also in the struggle (against apartheid), but they said the struggle must be for the people, not against them. . . . How does cancellation of a small party for friends end apartheid?”

Jabu Ngwenya, the boycott committee’s spokesman, said last week before he disappeared that “to express solidarity with those who are mourning the deaths of their loved ones and with those whose family members are in detention, all but the most spare of holiday celebrations must be canceled.”

“We call upon the youths of the community to ensure that Soweto observes a black Christmas this year,” he added then.

The Soweto Consumer Boycott Committee had called for cancellation of all holiday celebrations, including weddings, graduation parties and annual events such as choir competitions and the Miss Black South Africa beauty pageant, to supplement the boycott of white stores in Johannesburg that it had organized among black consumers.

Throughout the weekend, groups of youths went through Soweto breaking up parties held over the weekend, frequently beating up the hosts and guests. Other youths were stationed at the taxi ranks, train stations, bus depots and other entrances to the city to check the bags of returning commuters to ensure that the boycott was being observed. And still others raided shebeens, Soweto’s neighborhood speak-easies, to reduce the amount of partying there.

“With these youths, we have a reign of terror in Soweto,” Irene Mzizi said. “They do as they wish--murdering, robbing and assaulting people, and they are accountable to no one because they say they do it in the name of ‘the struggle.’ In other incidents, a bomb exploded in a bus terminal 15 miles south of Durban, causing about $80,000 in damage to seven buses. It was the third bomb exploded in Durban in the last 10 days.

In Cape Town, police detained a prominent anti-apartheid activist, Johnny Issel, and his wife, whom they had been seeking in connection with a series of hand-grenade attacks on local political leaders who have cooperated with the government. Police also acknowledged after earlier denials that they are holding 11 other activists without charges, which is permitted under the country’s severe security laws.

Foreign Minister Roelof F. (Pik) Botha, meanwhile, said that in the aftermath of a land-mine explosion near South Africa’s northern border with Zimbabwe on Sunday, the government of Prime Minister Robert Mugabe has again assured Pretoria that it will not permit guerrillas of the African National Congress or other groups to use its territory to launch attacks on South Africa.

Military officers from the two countries met Tuesday at the Beit Bridge border post to arrange a meeting for regional commanders from South Africa and Zimbabwe to discuss frontier security arrangements. South Africa denied Tuesday that it has reinforced its troops along the border but acknowledged that its soldiers have been more active since guerrillas set off seven mine blasts over the last three weeks, killing seven people and injuring 12.