Soweto Marks Anniversary of 1976 Riots

Soldiers and police patrolled black ghettos today while hundreds of thousands of blacks stayed at home to mark the 11th anniversary of the bloody 1976 uprising in which 575 blacks died.

Soweto, the township of 2.5 million blacks near Johannesburg, was almost totally shut down. Stores and municipal offices were closed. Trains carried about 5% of their normal commuter load. Buses and taxis did not run at all.

Many businesses around the country, accepting demands of black labor unions, designated June 16 as a paid holiday. The government has formed a commission to consider changes in holidays, but at present there are no official holidays of symbolic importance specifically for the 24-million black majority.

Reports from townships nationwide indicated that security forces were acting with restraint and that blacks were heeding a call by the United Democratic Front, the largest anti-apartheid coalition, to observe the anniversary “with maximum discipline and unity.”

‘Like Sunday, Only Tense’

Soweto residents said that unlike some past stayaways, militant youths were not erecting street barricades or intimidating workers into staying home.

“It’s like a Sunday, only tense,” said a local reporter after driving through the township.

On June 16, 1976, police fired on Soweto schoolchildren protesting the required use of Afrikaans as a language of instruction in their schools. That set off a rampage of arson and rioting in Soweto and provoked months of nationwide unrest in which, by official count, 575 blacks were killed.

A year ago, 11 blacks were killed June 16 when millions stayed away from work and school to commemorate the anniversary and protest the state of emergency President Pieter W. Botha declared four days previously.

That emergency was extended and reinforced last week.

‘Struggle Continues’

In Cape Town, a lone protester stood in rain alongside a roadway, holding a placard with the slogan: “Soweto 1976: The struggle continues.”

“This day is a day of mourning for all black people of South Africa,” anti-apartheid leader Albertina Sisulu said at the Soweto grave of Hector Petersen, the first protesting student shot by police on June 16, 1976.

“The children were dying like flies that day. Today we remember. No one is happy,” said Sisulu, 69, whose husband was jailed for life in 1964 with African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela on charges of sabotage.

Sisulu and 18 other black women gave clenched-fist salutes and sang protest songs at the grave of Petersen, a schoolboy who became a martyr and symbol of black resistance to apartheid.

Near Cape Town, unknown attackers late Monday threw a hand grenade into the home of a black councilman, injuring his 4-year-old daughter, his wife and two police officers, a police spokesman said.