Police Fire on Locked-Out Black Workers in S. Africa

Police opened fire today on black employees outside a pie factory where they had been locked out by management. At least 15 workers were injured, police and union officials said.

Police also arrested anti-apartheid activist Mohammed Valli Moosa, an official of the banned United Democratic Front and a leader of a new campaign to defy apartheid restrictions.

He was arrested at his Johannesburg office today and held there as security police searched his files.

There was no immediate indication what charges might be filed against Valli Moosa, one of three activists who escaped from detention last year and took sanctuary at the U.S. Consulate in Johannesburg.

The Food and Allied Workers Union said scores of workers assembled today outside the Mama’s Pies factory on Johannesburg’s southeastern outskirts, a day after the company locked them out because of a 4-week wage dispute.

The union said police used whips and live ammunition to disperse the workers and made several arrests. The union said 15 workers were injured, some seriously.

In another development, Trevor Tutu, son of Nobel Prize-winning Archbishop Desmond Tutu, was sentenced today to 18 months in prison for allegedly making a false bomb threat at Johannesburg’s international airport.

Tutu’s 32-year-old son was convicted of violating the Aviation Act by falsely telling police that there was a bomb in his luggage.

Shortly after the Dec. 31 incident, Trevor Tutu convened a news conference and told reporters that he deliberately courted arrest as part of a publicity stunt on behalf of his advertising agency.