S. Africa Police Attack White, Black Students

Riot police whipped, clubbed and turned dogs on protesting white students and teachers today, then drew pistols and fired tear-gas grenades at blacks on the campus of a prestigious university.

The violence erupted on the eve of an extreme-right-wing rally dedicated to apartheid.

Police said 47 people, mostly students, were arrested after two groups of about 30 each left the campus of Witwatersrand University and tried to march on a local police station.

Witnesses said police used whips, batons and dogs after one group sat down on a busy street in a Johannesburg suburb. A white 17-year-old girl was whipped as she lay screaming on the ground, one witness said.

Squads of riot police with whips and dogs later charged at several hundred students, mostly black, who later sat down on a road inside the campus. Stones and rocks were hurled, and several police pointed their service revolvers at the crowd.

Some of the stones hit police while others landed on Jan Smuts Avenue, a main route to the affluent northern suburbs, which was packed with rush-hour traffic.

A number of cars and buses were hit by stones near the university, normally a tranquil complex of fine buildings grouped around a central lawn.

The students were demanding that charges be dropped against student leader Ronney Makdosi, arrested in a protest Thursday called to demand the withdrawal of troops from anti-riot patrol in black townships.

On Saturday, Republic Day, five extreme-right-wing parties will gather at the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria to rededicate themselves to the white republic founded 25 years ago in defiance of world censure of apartheid.

The monument commemorates the Great Trek of 1838, when Dutch-descended Afrikaners walked 950 miles north in disgust over growing British colonization in the Cape and liberal pressure to end slavery.

“You cannot overemphasize the meaning of this,” said Louis Stofberg of the Herstigte Nasionale Party, one of the five parties joining in the rally. “This is where nationalism and religion blend. They (the right) are talking to God.”