S. Africa Frees Hundreds of Detained Children

Hundreds of children who had been detained without charge under South Africa’s state of emergency, many of them for six months or longer, have been freed in a surprise move over the last few days, civil rights groups said Friday.

At least 300 children, some no more than 11 years old, have been released from jails and prisons around the country, according to the Detainees’ Parents Support Committee and the Free the Children Alliance, which have campaigned for the children’s freedom.

Parents and children alike whooped and wept for joy as the children were released, often to the accompaniment of stern lectures by police officers warning against a return to violent protests.

‘A Great Risk . . . ‘

“We have decided to free the children . . . into the care of their parents,” a police commander told a meeting of parents, attorneys and clergymen at Krugersdorp, northwest of Johannesburg, according to a lawyer who was present.

“But it’s a great risk to set these children free,” the commander continued, recounting the “terrible things,” including murders, assaults and firebombings, that many of them had been involved in.

According to the lawyer, the commander warned that in effect the children were being released on probation--on condition that they did not resume the violent street protests that convulsed much of the country a year ago.

Max Coleman, chairman of the Detainees’ Parents Support Committee, speculated that as many as half of the estimated 1,500 youths under 18 who are being held under the emergency regulations might be freed by the government over the next week.

5,000 Believed Detained

The government is believed to be holding about 5,000 people under the emergency regulations, perhaps 3,000 of them constituting a “hard core” of anti-apartheid activists likely to be detained indefinitely. The total number of detentions under the state of emergency and other security laws is thought to approach 30,000.

Adriaan Vlok, the minister of law and order, refused again this week to give exact figures on the number of people held under the emergency regulations and the total number detained since President Pieter W. Botha declared a national state of emergency on June 12 of last year. Some figures have been provided and more would be given soon, he told the Parliament, but to do so now would not be in the interest of the state’s security.

Coleman suggested that the continued detention of so many children, a full third of all political detainees, has become a major embarrassment to Botha and his government, both at home and abroad.

‘What Does World Think?’

“How can a government that professes to be civilized, humane and Christian jail so many children?” he asked. “Put the other way around, what does the world think of a government a third of whose political detainees are schoolchildren? And just how does an 11-year-old threaten the security of the state, particularly this state, with all its military might? This government, in releasing these children, is starting to admit it has no answers to such questions.”

Only a month ago, Gen. Johan Coetzee, the national police commissioner, argued in an affidavit filed with the Cape provincial Supreme Court that “freeing some of these people (detained children) would constitute a serious threat to the safety of the public.”

Maj. Gen. Francois Steenkamp, an assistant to Coetzee, said in another affidavit that teen-agers from 16 to 18 had been responsible for much of the political violence in South Africa over the past 2 1/2 years.

“This group, the largest part of which did not display any political insight, gave vent to their discipline, barbarity and lawlessness under the guise of political activity,” Steenkamp said. He accused the youths of carrying out “a reign of terror and gruesome deeds.”

Coetzee, attempting to curb the free-the-children campaign mounted by civil rights and anti-apartheid groups, had prohibited as subversive any effort to secure the release of political detainees. His order was subsequently declared unlawful and invalid by the Natal provincial Supreme Court, but the government is appealing that ruling.

Coleman, a veteran civil rights campaigner, speculated that a second factor in the government’s policy turnaround was a desire by the police, who have almost absolute authority under the emergency regulations to detain anyone indefinitely without charge, to clear jail cells in anticipation of “more important detentions” around the first anniversary on June 12 of the state of emergency.

“This is not a prelude to the lifting of the state of emergency,” he said, “but probably a move toward its continuation and intensification.”

‘Citizenship’ Camps Reported

Civil rights lawyers believe that other youths are being sent to controversial “reeducation camps” where they are given a mix of lectures on good study habits, remedial lessons in basic classroom subjects, physical training and talks on “good citizenship” and “community leadership.” Critics have described this as “brainwashing.”

Spokesmen for the government’s Department of Education and Training, which operates the camps, say the youths’ participation is voluntary, though it may be a condition for their release from detention. They reject the “brainwashing” charge as absurd.

About 100 youths held at Modderbee Prison, west of Johannesburg, are reported by their lawyers to be in the second week of a hunger strike protesting plans to send them to the special camps.

Meanwhile, in the continuing unrest, a police patrol was fired on by a gunman in the black ghetto township of Nyanga outside Cape Town, according to police headquarters in Pretoria. Two policemen were slightly injured. The patrol returned the fire, according to the police, but the gunman escaped.