WORLD : 6 Killed in S. Africa Strike Battle
Six men were killed and at least 31 were injured today when hundreds of striking and non-striking rail workers battled with clubs, machetes, and other weapons at a train station near Johannesburg, police said.
Union spokesmen said they received reports of more than 20 people killed and more than 60 injured. The reports could not be confirmed. Bodies still lay in blood-soaked train cars two hours after the clash.
A police spokesman, Col. Frans Malherbe, said the battle involved about 1,000 black men still working for South African Transport Services who confronted about 800 strikers in Germiston, an industrial town southeast of Johannesburg. The strikers had arrived at the station by train on their way to a union meeting.
Meanwhile, a U.S. congressional delegation said today that government reforms have failed to address black voting rights and that U.S. economic sanctions should remain in place or even be toughened.
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