S. Africa Lifts Union Curbs, Admits ‘Error’

Faced with strong court challenges to the four-week-old state of emergency, the South African government Wednesday abruptly lifted its prohibition of labor union meetings in Johannesburg and eased restrictions on anti-apartheid activities here.

The government’s information bureau announced in Pretoria that police orders prohibiting any “gathering” by the country’s major black trade union federations and several of their affiliates had been imposed in “error” and would be canceled.

The bureau also said that bans on meetings of two dozen anti-apartheid organizations, including the United Democratic Front, would apply only to Soweto, the black satellite city outside Johannesburg, and not to the whole metropolitan area.

Nun’s Release Ordered

In Cape Town, the provincial Supreme Court also struck a blow against the emergency regulations. It ordered the release of a Roman Catholic nun, Sister Clare Harkin, who had been detained during a funeral June 23 under the emergency rules, which permit indefinite detention without charge. Harkin had tried to stop a policeman from beating a boy with a whip--the officer said she swore at him--and was detained.

Justice Robin Marais, in a precedent-setting ruling, declared that despite the state of emergency, police must be able to show the necessity of indefinite detention without charge and that their actions remain subject to court review.

A Johannesburg judge, issuing a similar ruling, Monday ordered the release of a detainee.

Marais said that a police captain had exceeded his authority in dispersing a funeral procession, that the beating of the boy was difficult to understand and that, “given her vocation, (Harkin’s) presence at the funeral was not unusual or sinister.”

The government’s statement acknowledging “error” came only a few hours after the National Union of Mineworkers and three other black unions filed lawsuits asking the provincial Supreme Court to declare the orders invalid. The suits asserted that President Pieter W. Botha had gone beyond the law in assuming such broad authority when he declared the state of emergency June 12.

In the suits, the unions also warned that the order banning meetings would disrupt contract negotiations in the mining, metal and other key industries and that this could lead to nationwide strikes.

Unions Plan for Monday

Several unions have already undertaken strikes, slowdowns, and sit-ins to protest the detention of union leaders, and a “national day of action” is planned for Monday to extend the protests.

As published Monday, the order effectively prohibited any union activity, including wage negotiations, normal union meetings and even day-to-day office operations, by banning any “gathering”--legally defined here as two or more persons coming together--by the named unions, which included the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the Council of Unions of South Africa.

The government’s cancellation of the order was its first major retreat since the imposition of emergency rule, giving the police and army virtual martial-law powers. Legal observers here speculated that it wanted to avoid adverse court rulings that could undermine all of the emergency regulations issued in the past month.

The government still faces an even broader challenge to the state of emergency by the predominantly black Metal and Allied Workers Union in Durban on Monday. The union is asking the Natal provincial Supreme Court, the most liberal in the country, to declare the state of emergency invalid on the grounds that Botha failed to seek parliamentary approval, as required by law, and that many aspects of the emergency regulations, such as a ban on “subversive statements,” are too vaguely worded.

Several mines that had been hit by work stoppages and slowdown actions over the detention of union leaders went back to work Wednesday, but the protests spread to other mines and to an automobile plant in East London. The 550,000-member Congress of South Africa Trade Unions is reportedly attempting to organize nationwide protests, perhaps including a general strike, for Monday to increase pressure on business to seek an end to the state of emergency.

(In New York, the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union reported that a South African union official, Amon Msane, 31, chief shop steward for the Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers Union at the Johannesburg plant of the Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Co., was arrested as he returned from a six-week trip to the United States, news agencies reported.

(Msane was reportedly taken off the plane as soon as it landed in Johannesburg and before a waiting American diplomat and others could welcome him. He had spoken out extensively against apartheid during his U.S. visit and expressed fears that he would be arrested on his return to South Africa.

(In Washington, a State Department spokesman again called upon Pretoria to release all those detained without charge under the state of emergency. “The U.S. government believes that the South African government is making a serious mistake in detaining union leaders and other individuals opposed to apartheid,” spokesman Bernard Kalb said.)

Meanwhile, the South African information bureau said a black man was killed in the country’s continuing civil strife. He was attempting to fire a homemade gun at a police patrol in a black ghetto township outside Port Elizabeth, the bureau said, and the police opened fire.

Five suspected members of the African National Congress, the main guerrilla organization fighting minority white rule, were arrested in connection with a series of land mine explosions on farms in eastern Transvaal province, the police reported. Two blacks were killed in one of the five explosions, and 13 other people were injured.

The government also announced plans for stricter security measures when the country’s 1.7 million black students return to school Monday. Many of the 7,000 black schools will require their students to wear badges or show identity cards to gain admission. Guards will be posted at all schools. School grounds that do not have fences will receive them and other security equipment. Teachers will be required to adhere to a strict code of behavior barring political activities.