S. Africa Police Disperse Women’s Protest March

Police fired tear gas and lashed out with rubber whips as they charged into a crowd of 2,000 black women preparing to march against apartheid Friday, witnesses reported.

They said the police chased the screaming women through the streets of Atteridgeville, a black community about three miles west of Pretoria, and injured dozens of them.

The witnesses, speaking on condition of anonymity, said dozens of women were taken away by authorities and estimated the number of injured at between 25 and 50.

A resident said police heaved a tear gas canister inside a house after one group of women went into it. The officers then broke down the door and dragged the women out by the feet.

Toddlers Wander Lost

Afterward, young children--some of them toddlers--wandered through the town looking for their mothers, the witnesses said.

Police headquarters in Pretoria said it had not received a report of the episode and had no other comment.

The women had planned a march to the Atteridgeville police station to demand that the army leave town and that the government end the restrictive state of emergency declared in many black areas last July.

Witnesses said they were forming up and police gave them five minutes to disperse but attacked before the time was up. Outdoor gatherings have been illegal in South Africa since 1976.

It was the security force’s second attack in as many days against a group of blacks.

3 Children Wounded

On Thursday, police flown in by helicopters raided an ecumenical center west of Johannesburg where black youngsters had sought refuge from violence in their townships. Three children suffered bullet wounds and the police arrested 55, according to witnesses who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Police had no comment on that incident either, beyond saying they had a search warrant.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Charles Redman said: “We are gravely concerned about the well-being of a large number of children and young people taken into custody” during the raid. “They were under the personal protection of Anglican Bishop Simeon Nkoane, who is known to us for his efforts to help youth in trouble in South Africa.”

The state of emergency allows security forces to detain people in an attempt to quell the nationwide uprising against apartheid, the official policy that denies rights to the nation’s black population.

Blacks say the state of emergency has turned their townships into nightly war zones, with soldiers and police firing wildly at any hint of trouble.

More than 1,100 people have been killed, nearly all of them black, since the violence began in September, 1984.

News on Mandela

Meanwhile, hopes that black activist leader Nelson Mandela would be released from prison soon were dampened again Friday.

His wife, Winnie Mandela, said she did not expect authorities to free him in a matter of days or even weeks.

Government sources have acknowledged privately that they are seeking a method of letting him go.

The 67-year-old Mandela, who was convicted of plotting sabotage and sentenced to life in prison in 1964, has become a symbol to blacks of their quest for equality.

Sixteen anti-apartheid groups announced the start of a campaign Friday to designate Winnie Mandela “the mother of our nation.” The groups announced their campaign at a news conference at a Roman Catholic convent in the black township of Kagiso, west of Johannesburg.