Tribal Clash at South Africa Mine Kills 8

The worst violence at South African gold mines in 10 years has taken the lives of eight more black workers, the country’s biggest mining company said Wednesday.

Anglo American Corp. said the eight died when Basotho migrant workers from Lesotho clashed with Xhosa tribesmen in the tense all-male hostels where they are housed at President Steyn mine in the Orange Free State. Another 37 were injured.

Sixty-four people have died in a month of factional fighting at South African mines, and industry experts said the violence is the worst since 1976. Mine managers attribute the violence mainly to tribal disputes.

The gold mining industry, the backbone of South Africa’s economy, has been plagued in recent months by accidents, strikes and factional fighting. The black National Union of Mineworkers is drawing up a report on the violence and the company has launched an inquiry into the clashes at President Steyn.

Industry experts say it takes little to ignite the tensions simmering in hostels where the migrant mine workers live separated from their families.

The rapid growth of trade unionism--legalized for black workers only seven years ago--has helped reduce mine violence sparked by disputes with management. But unionization has also introduced political conflicts among the workers over issues such as calls to boycott company-run taverns, the experts say.

Detainee Dies

In another development, a 20-year-old black man, detained without trial for nearly six months under South African emergency laws, has died in a Johannesburg hospital, civil rights workers said Wednesday.

Sources at the hospital confirmed the death there Tuesday of Simon Marule but declined to detail the circumstances.

Marule’s parents said that police had told them their son had been transferred from Modderbee Prison to the hospital shortly before his death, a spokesman for the Detainees’ Parents Support Committee said.