Blasts Demolish Offices of South Africa’s Ruling Party

Two explosions Saturday devastated offices of the ruling National Party a day after death threats against President Frederik W. de Klerk and anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela prompted a major tightening of security around national leaders.

No one claimed responsibility for the bombs.

It was not clear if the blasts were related to threats on the lives of De Klerk, several Cabinet members and Mandela believed made by a member of the white-separatist Afrikaner Resistance Movement and reported Friday in the liberal Afrikaans weekly Vrye Weekblad.

One of the bombs blew apart the National Party’s Auckland Park office in suburban Johannesburg, and the other exploded at party offices at Helderkruin, a satellite town west of Johannesburg.

Vrye Weekblad reported that a former Nazi in the white-separatist Afrikaner Resistance Movement--known as the AWB--masterminded a plot to shoot Mandela on his return July 18 from his 14-nation tour, kill De Klerk and take unspecified action against Cabinet members as a prelude to a right-wing takeover of the government.

Two extremist groups, the White Wolves and the Farmers’ Army, late Friday placed a bounty of $7,600 on the head of the person they think leaked word of the assassination plot to Vrye Weekblad. The perceived source of the leak, retired security policeman Jan Johannes Smith, who said he had independently infiltrated the AWB out of concern for national security, reportedly went into hiding as the newspaper report hit the streets.

Police on Friday released 11 right-wingers they had detained Thursday in relation to the plot. The Afrikaans Beeld newspaper said Saturday that police searches of the homes of the 11 revealed so little they had to be released.