S. Africa Blacks Call for End of School Boycott

Black community leaders Sunday called upon black students across South Africa to return to class, ending school boycotts that have contributed to much of the civil unrest here during the last year. They also set a three-month deadline for the government to respond with matching concessions or face even greater protests, including a possible general strike.

Dr. Nthato Motlana, chairman of the Soweto Civic Assn., said after a two-day conference here that blacks are demanding an end to the present state of emergency, which gives police virtual martial-law powers in much of the country, the withdrawal of troops from black residential areas and basic reforms of the black school system.

“If the government does not fulfill these requests, there will be another conference at the end of March to take the appropriate action. . . ,” Motlana said.

General Strike Proposed

Bishop Desmond Tutu of Johannesburg’s Anglican diocese told the conference earlier Sunday that if the government fails to respond to black demands after the students return to school, South Africa’s 25 million blacks should launch a general strike that would paralyze the country.

“If the government refuses these requests in three months, then it must not only be the students who are laying down tools, but teachers, parents, workers, church leaders, university staff and students must all combine in a concerted effort to say wokhai (stop),” Tutu, winner in 1984 of the Nobel Peace Prize, said.

Tutu added that he personally would campaign throughout the international community for punitive sanctions against South Africa, measures such as a trade embargo and withdrawal of foreign investments, if the government fails to act.

Other demands include elected student councils, new parents’ associations at all schools, reinstatement of dismissed or transferred teachers, legalization of the Congress of South Africa Students, which was banned in August, and development of a single school system for all races, a move that would upgrade black education.

The conference set Jan. 28 for the return to class, not the earlier government-set dates, in an apparent effort to demonstrate its strength before negotiations.

“We have resolved to strive actively for what we call ‘a people’s education,’ where all sectors of the community will be parties in designing it,” said the Rev. Molefe Tsele of the Soweto Parents’ Crisis Committee, which organized the conference. “Apartheid is totally unacceptable to the majority of people in South Africa, and this will be, or could be, a major step toward dismantling it.”

The community leaders’ unanimous call for an end to the boycott is one of the most significant political developments here in recent months. If it is heeded by black youths, it could bring a sharp reduction in the level of violence across most of the country. Not only would students be in school rather than in the streets, but they also would be brought under a much greater measure of parental discipline than they have been for the past year.

More important, however, would be a commitment by both the black community and the minority white government to resolve the country’s problems through negotiations between the authorities and respected black leaders who have broad popular support.

The effort already has brought together the broadest cross-section of the black community assembled in recent years. More than 700 delegates representing 161 black political groups, labor unions, parents committees, student organizations and civic associations took part in the two-day conference. They put aside ideological differences, political rivalries and other divisive issues to agree on a medium-term strategy for the first time in many years.

Also, the three-month-old Soweto Parents’ Crisis Committee obtained the blessing of the African National Congress. It was the first time in the 25 years since the congress was banned and undertook its guerrilla war against Pretoria that it has approached--although indirectly--negotiations with the government.

The congress, while outlawed here, still commands the allegiance of a majority of blacks.

Disillusionment Feared

“Although our initial focus is getting the kids back in school for their own sake and the good of the community, a lot more is riding on this effort,” Vusi Khanyile, a secretary of the Soweto Parents Crisis Committee, said afterward. “If all this works, we could build on that success, but if it fails, then, I am afraid, disillusionment within the black community would probably be total. This is a pretty high-stakes game.”

Prospects for the effort remain uncertain, black and white political observers here agreed, and the response of both the students and the government will be closely watched.

Government officials have sought for a year to get the boycotting black students, generally about 10% or 15% of the 1.8 million black youths in urban areas, back to school, believing that their presence on the streets adds greatly to the strife. In some areas, they have even made truancy a crime under the state of emergency, punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

The prospect of ending the school boycott, which some black militants have said should be extended through 1986, thus must be very tempting for the government.

But the conditions the conference set may prove impossible to meet: The government approaches all unrest with displays of strength, convinced that it must never negotiate from weakness and, as one well-placed official put it this weekend, “must always be seen to be ruling.”

The junior Cabinet ministers, Adriaan Vlok, deputy minister of law and order and defense, and Sam de Beer, deputy minister of education, who have been negotiating in recent weeks with the Soweto Parents’ Crisis Committee, have already made it clear that the government will not end the state of emergency or withdraw the army until the situation is quiet--and that the government alone will make those decisions.

Other black demands, such as elected student councils and new parents committees at all schools, could be negotiable, an official familiar with the ministers’ talks with the committee said, but many in the government feel “unrest must be punished, not rewarded, because otherwise we will have more of it.”

Despite uncertainty about the government’s reaction, the conference called on youths across the country to support the return to school and the negotiations in hopes that this will not only break the cycle of violence but bring meaningful reforms. “We do believe that different areas of the country will now abide by the decision of the conference,” Khanyile said.

But in Cape Town, police banned for a month similar meetings to discuss the school crisis, and Cape Town representatives at the conference here expressed concern that they will be unable to muster sufficient community support without such gatherings.

Victims Buried in Lesotho

Meanwhile, news agencies reported from neighboring Lesotho that six South African exiles shot to death in a border raid that Lesotho blames on South African troops were buried there with state and guerrilla honors Sunday. U.S. and foreign envoys attended the funerals.

The victims, described as refugee members of the African National Congress, were buried on the eve of a bid by Lesotho to have South Africa condemned by the U.N. Security Council for the Dec. 20 raid.

“Now is not the time to mourn, but to mobilize. We vow this crime shall be avenged,” Thomas Ncobi, treasurer-general of the congress, told an estimated 1,500 mourners.

South Africa denied involvement in the raid, and a rebel Lesotho group, the Lesotho Liberation Army, claimed responsibility. Lesotho charges that the group is a South African surrogate.

The South Africans and three Lesotho citizens were killed by raiders using weapons fitted with silencers in two homes in Maseru, the Lesotho capital, which is on the South African border.

In Pretoria, Louis le Grange, the minister of law and order, issued a statement saying that police have arrested two people in connection with a bombing near Durban last week that killed five and wounded 48 others, and that other suspects were arrested in connection with more than a dozen other blasts in the Durban area in recent months.

Weapons Found

“A large quantity of overseas manufactured weapons, including submachine guns, anti-personnel mines, hand grenades and an anti-vehicle land mine as well as a quantity of explosives and subversive literature were confiscated,” Le Grange said. “The investigation continues, and it is expected that more arrests will be made.”

Le Grange blamed African National Congress guerrillas for the spate of bombings, but he provided no further information on those arrested in what he described as a round-the-clock police effort in the past week.