WORLD : Blacks Mark Soweto Riots; 1 Killed

One person was killed and vehicles were stoned and burned today as tens of thousands of blacks boycotted work to mark the 13th anniversary of the bloody Soweto uprising.

The white-led government had refused to declare the day an official holiday but many businesses shut down because of the boycott. South African police reported “a number” of stone-throwing incidents and firebomb attacks in black townships as activists moved to discourage laborers from reporting to work. In the Cape Town township of Guguletu, one black was attacked and stabbed to death in a vehicle forced to stop at a burning barricade, police said. The independent South African Institute of Race Relations estimates 700 blacks were killed nationwide in the months following the Soweto uprising.