S. Africa’s Top Black Labor Leader Calls on Workers to ‘Seize Power’

A day after the government forced black metalworkers to abandon their strike, the black leader of the country’s largest labor federation urged blacks Wednesday to “seize power from the intransigent government” and dared President Pieter W. Botha to put him in prison.

“I’m here to bury P.W. Botha, not to praise him,” declared Elijah Barayi, president of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, to shouts of approval from the 1,400 delegates at their national convention.

Barayi also lauded members of the outlawed African National Congress, the largest guerrilla group fighting to end white rule, as “freedom fighters.”

“There can be no freedom in this country unless the African National Congress is involved,” Barayi said, praising ANC president Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela, imprisoned leader of the ANC’s military wing.

“I know that by (my) saying this, the Botha regime will one day lock me up, but let them do so,” said Barayi, 57, a mine administrator and former gold miner. “This intransigent government will not hand over power. The black majority shall have to seize power from the intransigent government.”

Waves of chanted cheers and stamping feet interrupted his speech in the crammed hall at the Witwatersrand University.

The conference began Tuesday, just hours after the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa called off a strike by at least 60,000 blacks in 500 factories across the country.

The day-old strike, called to press demands for better wages and conditions, was abandoned after the government published a notice making the stoppage illegal.