Angry Blacks Disrupt Rites for 177 Killed in Mine Fire

Hundreds of angry black miners, chanting “We’re not going to pray with whites today,” stormed through a company-sponsored memorial service today at the gold mine where 177 workers died in an underground fire last week.

As black and white clergymen delivered sermons, a group of several hundred miners appeared and jogged through the midst of the outdoor service 10 times, singing union songs that at times drowned out the sermons.

“We’re not going to pray with whites today. We’ve never been allowed to pray with whites. We’ll have our own rites,” some shouted.

Nearly half of the 6,000 black Kinross Gold Mine workers who had gathered on bleachers and chairs for the service, arranged by the mine management, drifted away during the chaotic ceremony to join a meeting held nearby by the rebel miners.

Racial Feelings

It was a dramatic demonstration of racial feelings in the mining industry, where 600,000 blacks work underground with white supervision, and of anger stirred by accusations that neglect of safety standards by General Mining Union Corp. led to the disaster.

In the fire last Tuesday at the mine 62 miles southeast of Johannesburg, 172 black and five white miners were killed, and 235 injured.

Miners also complained that “Nkosi Sikelele i’Afrika” (“God Bless Africa”), the unofficial black anthem, was not played at the service.

Asked to comment on the incident, Gencor Chairman Derek Keys, said, “In a sense, it’s their service.” He and other top mine managers sat in the front row, a few feet from the shouting, whistle-blowing, fist-waving dissident miners.

Some workers carried rubber hoses tied in loops, symbolic of the tire “necklaces” used by militants in black townships to burn victims during two years of anti-apartheid unrest.

Waved Hard Hats

“Amandla!” the workers shouted, using the Zulu word for power, as they waved the hard hats they wear during mining.

“An injury to one is an injury to all. We cry for our fallen brothers,” a sign said.

The service began at 11 a.m. on a field in the shadow of the barracks-like hostels where migrant miners live, apart from their families, and close to the tall pit head of No. 2 shaft where the fire occurred.