British Cricketers Open S. Africa Tour; Protesters Rampage
Anti-apartheid demonstrators rampaged through the old mining town of Kimberley on Friday, smashing shop and car windows to protest the opening game of a boycott-breaking cricket tour by English athletes, state-run television reported.
Police arrested 31 youths on public violence charges, the television said.
Violence erupted after police blocked a march by 2,000 protesters half a mile from the grounds where the cricket players, under former England captain Mike Gatting, opened their controversial seven-week tour Friday.
After a four-hour standoff with police, the marchers ran through the center of the town, about 280 miles southwest of Johannesburg, smashing shop and car windows with branches ripped from nearby trees, witnesses told reporters.
The cricket tour has drawn widespread protests from anti-apartheid activists because it violates a U.N.-sanctioned boycott of international sporting links with South Africa, imposed until the government abolishes apartheid in sport.
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