Black Miners Get Two Days to End Strike

The Anglo American mining conglomerate today extended a back-to-work deadline for 19,000 black strikers, and the death toll in the 15-day-old walkout rose to six.

Early in the day, Anglo said it was firing about 7,000 strikers at the No. 2 and No. 3 shafts of its Western Holdings gold mine in the Orange Free State because they did not return to work by today’s deadline.

The company, the largest of the six targeted in the strike for a 30% wage increase, later issued a statement saying it had extended the deadline until Wednesday for those workers and about 12,000 at two coal mines and two other gold mines “to allow employees more time to consider their options.”

Last week, about 9,000 workers were fired by Anglo and other companies.

Three strike-related deaths were reported today, including one in a pre-dawn clash between supporters and opponents of the strike at Anglo’s President Steyn gold mine in the Orange Free State.

Bobby Godsell, director of industrial relations for Anglo, said nine miners were injured in the fighting, including six when mine security guards fired rubber bullets to disperse the combatants.

Johannesburg Consolidated Investments said a strike supporter was killed Sunday night at its Western Areas gold mine in western Transvaal province by “disgruntled workers who had become thoroughly disgusted at attempts to prevent them from working.”

A company spokesman, J.J. Nel, said another miner was killed at Western Areas late Saturday when he tried to break up a fight between workers and strike supporters.

Three previous deaths have been linked to the strike--a striker killed by security officers and two miners who authorities say may have been killed for defying the strike. The union says more than 320 strikers have been injured and 300 arrested.

The Chamber of Mines, representative of the six targeted mining companies, says 230,000 miners are on strike at 29 mines.

In a political development not related to the strike, the leader of the mixed-race chamber of Parliament quit the Cabinet today, saying President Pieter W. Botha is intolerant of dissent.

The Rev. Allan Hendrickse, one of two nonwhite Cabinet ministers, announced his resignation in an emotional speech to the House of Representatives.

He has led the house since its creation in 1984 as part of a tri-cameral Parliament that included chambers of whites and Asians but excluded the black majority. The anti-apartheid movement opposed the new Parliament, saying it entrenched white domination.

Hendrickse, who held no Cabinet portfolio, said the specific reason for his resignation arose from Botha’s plan to postpone a general election for whites from 1989 until 1992. Hendrickse said he wanted to reconsider his initial pledge of support for the delay and indicated that Botha was angered by this change of position.