Car Bombs Outside Johannesburg Courthouse Kill 3, Wound 15

Two car bombs exploded two minutes apart Wednesday outside a courthouse in downtown Johannesburg, killing three white policemen and injuring at least 15 other people.

South African authorities blamed the outlawed African National Congress for the bombing, the 26th in the country so far this year and one of the most devastating attacks yet on the police here.

The courthouse blasts came on the fourth anniversary of the country’s worst terrorist attack, in which 19 people were killed and 239 injured by a car bomb outside air force headquarters in Pretoria. They seemed to be a reminder to whites of the ANC’s ability to strike at even well-guarded targets.

The people injured Wednesday, according to police headquarters, included five policemen, three of whom were in serious condition, and at least 10 civilian passers-by, black and white.

Adriaan Vlok, the minister of law and order, described the attack as “an unscrupulous deed, where members of the public, irrespective of race, sex or age, became the victims of the cowardice of the African National Congress.”

The bombs were placed in separate but nearby cars, according to police, and were apparently timed so that the second, which was far more powerful, would explode while police officers, who had rushed out of the magistrate’s court building, were investigating the first blast.

The second car was thrown through the air by the force of the explosion, and debris was found more than 60 yards away, some of it atop an eight-story building. Trees were uprooted, dozens of cars were damaged by shrapnel-like metal shards and windows were shattered in office buildings over a three-block area.

Pour Out of Buildings

“It was terrible,” a man said at the scene. “There was this huge bang, and I looked around and saw this woman flying through the air.”

Hundreds of people ran in panic from the scene, but many more poured out of neighboring office buildings, which house several of the country’s giant mining firms and industrial conglomerates. Witnesses said policemen had run through the magistrate’s courts shouting, “Bomb! Bomb! Get out!”

Apparently worried that a third bomb might have been left to explode amid the chaos, the police cordoned off the area and used sniffer dogs to check other cars.

Policemen arrested 11 journalists, mostly foreign television crews and photographers, and confiscated their film. They were released later Wednesday. Several said the police accused them of having been told in advance of the bombs, but the police said they were merely enforcing censorship regulations that prohibit newsmen from firsthand coverage of political violence and civil unrest.

There was no immediate comment from ANC headquarters in Lusaka, Zambia, although its officials, in recent Radio Freedom broadcasts, have called for increased attacks on the police, the armed forces, government facilities and similar targets.

The ANC accepted responsibility for the Pretoria car bomb in 1983 and for other attacks over the years, but last July it adopted a policy of not commenting on specific bombs, land mines and guerrilla attacks.

Tuesday night, a cleaning woman discovered a mine near an elevator shaft in the Carlton Center, one of the major shopping and office complexes in downtown Johannesburg. She dropped it in a trash can minutes before it exploded.

Before dawn Wednesday, the police raided several of the University of the Witwatersrand’s student hostels here and reportedly detained at least 17 black students in connection with what they said were investigations into recent unrest and suspected ANC activity. A spokesman for the school’s Black Students’ Society described the raids as “an open declaration of war on our student body.”

In another early morning raid, policemen searched an apartment building that is occupied largely by blacks although it is in Johannesburg’s Hillbrow neighborhood, an area officially reserved for whites. Residents of the building said they were questioned about the identity of those living in the flats. They said the incident may be a prelude to government action to force them to move.

The police reported that a black miner was shot to death and 15 others were injured Tuesday when policemen clashed with strikers at a gold mine west of Johannesburg. The miner had struck a riot policeman over the head with an iron bar, according to police headquarters, and the policeman then shot him.

The miners were protesting the quality of their food, the mine’s system of production bonuses and the closure of the National Union of Mineworkers offices at the mine. The police said they used tear gas, rubber bullets, shotguns and rifles to break up what they described as an “illegal gathering” by the miners. A spokesman for General Mining Union Corp. said the strike is over and the situation at the mine is calm.

In Cape Town, a 27-year-old man from the Crossroads squatter settlement admitted in court that he was the regional commander of the ANC’s military wing, Spear of the Nation, as he pleaded guilty to charges of terrorism for having planned a number of bombings in the area last year. Five others also changed their pleas from innocent to guilty in an apparent bid for leniency, and seven more men pleaded guilty to lesser charges.