Bomb Kills 3 in Botswana Amid Fear of S. African Raid

A woman and two children were killed early Thursday when a powerful car bomb exploded in Gaborone, the capital of Botswana, amid heightened fears of possible South African military attacks on alleged facilities of the African National Congress there and in other neighboring countries.

Police in Gaborone said they are not sure of the motive for the bomb or the intended target. One of the children killed was 7 years old, the other 6 months. Six other people were hospitalized with serious injuries, the police said.

The bomb, which destroyed two houses and damaged 19 others, had been planted in a minibus with South African license plates, according to the police, who declined to give more details pending further investigation of the explosion.

President Quett Masire, after visiting the scene, decried “this murder of innocent people, innocent children.”

Warnings From Pretoria

Botswana was already tense as the result of sharp warnings issued by Pretoria over the past week to several countries in the region. The South African government said its forces are prepared to prevent what it described as a planned African National Congress terrorist campaign in connection with parliamentary elections scheduled for May 6 in South Africa.

South African Foreign Minister Roelof F. (Pik) Botha said that a large number of heavily armed ANC guerrillas had assembled outside Lusaka, where the ANC has its headquarters, and that some had already left Zambia to infiltrate South Africa from Botswana, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

“If these terrorists proceed and cross into our territory and carry out their evil plan,” Botha told an election rally, “our security forces will take whatever steps are necessary to retaliate and to protect our borders.”

Botha urged South Africa’s neighbors to prevent any ANC infiltration and called on Zambia “most urgently to take effective action to counter the plan of the ANC.”

Will Protect Borders

“The (South African) government cannot allow terrorists to enter the republic from neighboring countries,” he continued. “This should not be construed as a threat. However, if these armed terrorists are allowed to pursue their violent designs, the South African government will be forced to take whatever action it deems necessary to protect its people and the country’s borders.”

Similar warnings have come from President Pieter W. Botha, Defense Minister Magnus Malan and Adriaan Vlok, the minister of law and order.

South African government officials have said a fierce shoot-out early Wednesday between police and two suspected ANC guerrillas was linked to the alleged terrorist campaign.

According to South African police headquarters in Pretoria, two blacks and a white policeman were killed in the gun battle, which took place near Ventersdorp, about 50 miles west of Johannesburg, after the police chased and stopped a pickup truck driven by the men. The police said they found a number of mines and other explosives hidden in the truck.

Opposition Critical

South Africa’s opposition Progressive Federal Party accused the ruling National Party of trying to create a “panic” before the all-white elections.

“The Progressive Federal Party strongly condemns violence and terrorism,” Helen Suzman, a top party spokesman, said, “but this is not the type of thing that should be brought up at political meetings for political gains.”

The Zambian foreign minister, Luke Mwananshiku, on Thursday accused South African Foreign Minister Botha of trying to win votes from the far right with “wild allegations” about an African National Congress terror campaign. He described Botha’s charges as baseless. The ANC has no military bases in Zambia, he said, and has not assembled guerrillas outside Lusaka, as Botha charged.

Tom Sebina, the ANC spokesman, described Pretoria’s allegations as “utter nonsense.” The ANC, he said, opposes the elections as “a prolongation of the injustice of apartheid” but has no plan to disrupt them.

Both Botswana and Mozambique said that such past warnings from South Africa were generally followed by military raids, and spokesmen in Gaborone and Maputo said that the National Party might try to win votes through such raids in the next three weeks.

Last May, South Africa attacked alleged ANC facilities in Gaborone, outside Lusaka in Zambia, and killed three people, none of them a member of the outlawed guerrilla group.

The raids, which were widely condemned, brought to an end mediation efforts by a special Commonwealth commission that was trying to promote a negotiated resolution of the South African crisis.

South Africa has not carried out any major raids on its neighbors since then, but Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland have all complained in recent months of covert cross-border operations, one of which was acknowledged by Pretoria when two Swiss citizens abducted from Swaziland were released.