Black S. Africans Fight for Shantytown; 14 Die

At least 14 people have been killed in a bloody two-day fight between black radicals and black pro-government vigilantes for control of the sprawling Crossroads shantytown outside Cape Town.

More than 30 blacks have died in the last 48 hours, mostly in political feuding and tribal fighting, in a sharp increase in violence here.

Huge fires set by the rival factions to burn out their opponents are sweeping through the Crossroads settlement, which is covered with a pall of thick smoke. Government officials say that more than 20,000 of its 100,000 residents are now homeless. More than 75 were seriously wounded Sunday and Monday.

The clashes, the sixth round of fighting in recent months between young radicals--called “comrades”--and older conservatives--known as “fathers”--are being fought with knives, axes, machetes and, increasingly, firearms, including AK-47 assault rifles. Eight of the 10 bodies found Monday had gunshot wounds, police said.

‘A War Zone Out There’

Noting how automatic rifle fire echoed across the area Monday, Jan van Eck, a member of the Cape provincial council from the liberal white Progressive Federal Party, observed, “That is nothing less than a war zone out there.”

Police said they have deployed 500 men in the area and have tried to intervene using tear gas but were unable to separate the warring factions without using greater force than they thought acceptable. Van Eck accused the police, however, of “actively supporting the conservative vigilantes in this power struggle.”

At stake in the Crossroads war is leadership of one of the largest and most influential squatter settlements in the country. Black militants are determined to oust older men they see as government collaborators, and the older leaders, in turn, are equally set on re-establishing themselves as Crossroads’ overlords.

Tents and Soup Kitchens

Red Cross and other relief workers have erected tents and opened soup kitchens for those fleeing the squatter settlement.

Outside Johannesburg, meanwhile, a mother and her four children were burned to death when their home in Kagiso, a black township west of the city, was set on fire in an apparent attempt to kill her husband, Morgan Montoedi, a leader of the anti-apartheid Krugersdorp Residents Organization.

“We think those responsible for the attack are agents of the system,” Laurence Ntlokoa, general secretary of the Krugersdorp organization, said. “Morgan Montoedi is the most loved person in the township. Nobody here would have harmed him.”

Near Paarl, north of Cape Town, two blacks were killed Monday, according to police, when members of the United Democratic Front’s local affiliates fought with rivals in the Azanian People’s Organization at Mbekweni, the scene of more than 10 such clashes in the last six months. Eleven other Mbekweni residents were wounded in the fighting.

Police said that homes of six members of the Azanian People’s Organization were set afire, railway trains were attacked with firebombs, police cars were stoned and a white police constable was wounded when a gunmen opened fire with a rifle on police attempting to quell the violence.

But local residents blamed police for much of the violence and said that the dead and most of the wounded had been shot in clashes with the police and not in political feuding.

Near Ulundi, the capital of Kwazulu, the Zulu tribal homeland, 12 Zulus were killed in a new outbreak of fighting in a dispute over ownership of the scarce land allocated to tribes there.

Police reported two other deaths in widespread violence at 23 locations around the country Monday. Cars were stoned, trucks hijacked, houses set on fire and stores looted as anti-government protests continued.

In Johannesburg, meanwhile, Helene Passtoors, 44, the Belgian woman convicted last week of treason for assisting the African National Congress in its guerrilla war against minority white rule here, was sentenced to 10 years in prison. She was permitted to appeal both her conviction and sentence.

Judge T.T. Spoelstra said of her support for the congress, “This is conduct which no reasonable man nor court of law can countenance.”