Guerrillas Vow Retaliation for Black Slayings in South Africa
An opposition leader today called for an independent investigation into the police killings of 20 blacks in Soweto, and a leader of the African National Congress guerrilla group said it would retaliate.
“Our people must learn how to disarm the enemy marauding our townships and turn their guns against them,” the Zimbabwe news agency ZIANA quoted Alfred Nzo, secretary-general of the African National Congress, as saying in Harare, Zimbabwe.
ZIANA said Nzo called the killings Tuesday and Wednesday a “heinous crime” and promised that the ANC would “answer back.”
Pretoria’s state Bureau for Information today reported stone-throwing incidents Thursday night in Soweto, the huge black township near Johannesburg, but did not mention any new casualties.
The government has promised a public inquiry into the Soweto riots. It said 21 people were killed and 98 others injured Tuesday night through Wednesday.
However, Helen Suzman, an anti-apartheid activist in the opposition Progressive Federal Party, said today: “An independent inquiry is absolutely essential, not an internal police inquiry. The official story contrasts quite markedly from what I heard from people in Soweto.”
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