Millions Join Blacks’ Protest in South Africa

Millions of blacks joined one of the largest protest strikes in South African history Monday, shutting down townships, factories and businesses nationwide in an attempt to pressure the white government to end violence and relinquish power.

At least 12 blacks were killed in strike-related violence on the first day of the two-day protest. Among the injured were two white journalists shot by black gunmen who hijacked their car in Sebokeng township, south of Johannesburg.

Paul Taylor, 43, a Washington Post correspondent, was wounded in the shoulder, and Phillip van Niekerk, a South African journalist who writes for the Toronto Globe and Mail, was shot in the jaw. Both were in stable condition at Johannesburg hospitals.

The death toll was fairly typical for a weekday in South Africa, despite government predictions of a blood bath. An 11-member U.N. team called in to monitor the strike fanned out across the country during the day, visiting potential trouble spots and helping to avert a confrontation between police and protesters in at least one township.

The African National Congress, which called the strike with its union allies, praised “the peaceful and disciplined manner in which the strike was conducted.”

“The general strike gives voice to the deep-seated anger of millions about the (President Frederik W.) de Klerk government’s refusal to negotiate in good faith and take the necessary action to end the violence,” said ANC Secretary General Cyril Ramaphosa.

“The disenfranchised have unmistakably voted with their feet for democracy and peace now,” Ramaphosa added.

The strike, joined by more than half the country’s 7 million private-sector black work force, was certain to bring additional pressure on De Klerk to meet the ANC’s conditions for resuming talks with the government.

The ANC pulled out of talks in June after the massacre of more than 40 blacks by other blacks in Boipatong township--an act for which the ANC says the government bears responsibility, despite official denials. And although the president has gone some way toward meeting those demands, Ramaphosa said the ANC wants more concrete responses from the government.

The ANC quietly resumed contact with the government last week to discuss the more than 400 political prisoners who the ANC says still are being held in South African jails. It is widely believed that the ANC will return to the bargaining table soon after the strike, citing the presence of the U.N. team to monitor violence in the country as a key government concession.

U.N. special envoy Cyrus R. Vance left the country last week after a 10-day mission. Vance, a former U.S. secretary of state, is due to present his confidential report to the U.N. secretary general soon. A full report to the U.N. Security Council is expected within a week, and the council may agree to ANC requests that it set up a permanent mission to monitor the progress of negotiations.

On Monday, though, the ANC said that full negotiations with the government will not resume until De Klerk abandons attempts to maintain white minority veto power over a future constitution and takes concrete steps to end the countrywide violence that has claimed nearly 8,000 lives in the past three years.

De Klerk denies that he wants to maintain a white veto, and he has criticized the ANC’s general strike and its current campaign of sit-ins, marches and rallies, arguing that they contribute to a climate of violence. The government also has urged the ANC to return to the bargaining table if it is serious about negotiations.

The strike Monday left dozens of townships deserted and most black schools closed. Commuter trains into Johannesburg from Soweto, the township of 2.5 million, ran virtually empty.

“The people are scared to go to work,” said a black taxi driver in Soweto, where dozens of taxi vans stood idle at the township’s largest taxi stand.

Essential services were not disrupted by the strike, but many stores that rely on black labor in Johannesburg and other cities were shuttered. Factories and mines reported high rates of absenteeism. Milk deliveries and trash pickup in the white suburbs were halted. And service stations, fast-food outlets and other small businesses in the townships also were closed.

In some townships, burning barricades of tires were erected to warn blacks not to go to work and to keep police out. And militants also put up barricades on rail lines in Durban and Cape Town.

In Soweto, three black men were shot to death by police and four officers were wounded in a gun battle that erupted after some 50 blacks, apparently enforcing the strike, stoned vehicles, police said.

And, near Cape Town, police shot a man to death after strikers hurled rocks at vehicles. Eight people died in strike-related violence in Natal province, previously the scene of many battles between the ANC and its rival, the Inkatha Freedom Party. Police said the dead included a bus driver caught in an ambush of vehicles carrying workers defying the strike.

The two journalists were shot after their car was stopped by five men in the volatile township of Sebokeng, where white visitors recently have become targets of neighborhood “self-defense units” run by ANC-supporting youths. However, the journalists said that robbery was the apparent motive for the attack.

Although the ANC hailed the strike as an “overwhelming success,” many blacks stayed home from work more out of fear for their safety than a desire to protest. Police said they received dozens of complaints from blacks who said they had been threatened and forced to join the strike.

Of those blacks who went to work on the chilly winter morning, many had spent the night in factories and stores in the city, fearing that they would be attacked during their commute to work. Most of those who went to work said they could not afford to lose two days’ pay; businesses in South Africa had vowed to dock workers’ pay and take disciplinary action if their workers joined the strike.

The negotiation process in South Africa has had little impact on the bleak outlook for the majority of the country’s 29 million blacks. Joblessness is as high as 50% in some townships.

Townships also have been racked by political violence, which has mainly pitted Inkatha supporters against those of the ANC.

But the ANC and many blacks believe that the government has been unable--or unwilling--to step in to stop the bloodshed.

The strike resumes today and will be followed by a week of protests.