400 Detained After S. Africa Student Riot

Rioting students, angry over disciplinary hearings against mixed-race teachers, Monday hurled a homemade bomb at a police van, slightly injuring one officer, and more than 400 demonstrators were detained, police and witnesses said.

The attack occurred in the white Cape Town suburb of Wynberg as more than 2,000 students and teachers demonstrated outside South African government offices to protest the opening of disciplinary hearings involving 72 teachers.

The teachers face penalties ranging from dismissal to fines of up to $200 for refusing to administer year-end exams in 1985 after tens of thousands of students boycotted classes in a nationwide anti-government protest.

400 Reported Detained

Although riot police peacefully dispersed the demonstrators outside the hearings, about 1,200 later gathered at a nearby movie theater. After the bomb attack, police cordoned off the area around the theater and detained up to 400 people, witnesses said. A police spokesman in Pretoria, however, said no formal arrests were made.

Meanwhile, in the nearby Bokaap district, witnesses said hundreds of students rampaged through the area, vandalizing cars and skirmishing with riot police. School sources said police used whips and dogs to try to disperse the students. Police would only confirm that a car in the district had been gutted by fire.