VIOLENCE : S. Africans Fear Terrorism Will Spark Race War : Attacks have struck a raw nerve among whites already nervous about the prospect of black-controlled government.

Clare Silberbauer was a slender, white 13-year-old, with wavy hair and a sunny smile. Last week, black terrorists opened fire on the car carrying her to school. She died two days later, a victim of “anger, frustration and violence,” her mother said.

Clare’s death--and the killing of whites Sandra Mitchley and her 14-year-old son, Shaun Nel, in the same shooting spree--has generated unprecedented feelings of bitterness and fear across white South Africa. Already frightened by sharp increases in violent crime, whites now worry about random, anti-white terrorism.

Marie and Anthony Concer didn’t know Clare Silberbauer. But like most South Africans, they read about her death over their breakfast table on Monday morning. Marie was angry, but her husband counseled against thoughts of revenge. “Two wrongs don’t make a right,” he said.

Less than an hour later, Anthony Concer, 55, also was dead--the fourth white motorist in less than a week to be killed in politically inspired drive-by shootings.

The resurgence of random attacks on whites, apparently by the ragtag armed wing of the radical Pan-Africanist Congress, has renewed fears here of a race war between radical whites and blacks. In recent days, police have installed armed guards on school buses and arrested 18 PAC guerrillas. And the government is mobilizing army reservists for a crackdown on violence.

Clare Silberbauer, Anthony Concer and the others were only the latest in a long list of victims of political violence over the years. Thousands of those victims have been black; only about 100 have been white.

But the recent shootings, coming amid clear signs of progress toward a political settlement here, have struck a raw nerve among whites already nervous about the prospect of a black-controlled government.

The alleged perpetrators are from the Azanian People’s Liberation Army (APLA), a shadowy wing of the Pan-Africanist Congress. The PAC recently joined multi-party talks on a new constitution, but its small and growing army continues to mount guerrilla activities.

The PAC and its armed wing are demanding an immediate shift of power from the white minority to the black majority. And they strongly oppose agreements between Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress and President Frederik W. de Klerk’s government to share power in the first post-apartheid government.

The liberation army’s traditional targets have been police. Authorities believe the group is responsible for many of the 200 police deaths in the past year. But the group expanded its battlefield late last year with an attack on a golf club dining room in the Eastern Cape that left four whites dead.

PAC leaders, who draw most of their support from angry, radicalized young blacks, have tried to distance themselves from the attacks. But they have not condemned them. “It is not our policy to conduct a race war against whites,” PAC spokesman Barney Desai said recently on state-run television. “How can the PAC gain from killing children?”

But Desai said armed resistance to the white-minority government will continue until a transitional council is installed and a date for democratic elections set. (Negotiators hope that will be by June or July.)

In fact, though, the internal PAC leaders exert little control over the guerrillas, who operate on orders from generals outside the country. Political analysts say the PAC’s armed wing itself is divided, with renegade factions responsible for the attacks on civilians.

The recent killings are unlikely to derail negotiations. But they will complicate the resumption of multi-party talks next week. Many political leaders now are objecting to the presence of the PAC at the bargaining table.

And angry right-wing whites now are warning of a race war.

“APLA has declared war on whites,” the Afrikaner Resistance Movement said in a statement. “We accept the declaration and will fight them with everything at our disposal.”

Much of the anger has been triggered by the story of Silberbauer’s life and death. She had fallen off a horse and fractured her skull when she was 6 years old, her family said. After seven years of operations, she was finally able to ride again two months ago.

But Clare’s family urged South Africans not to be bitter. “Men with guns,” her parents said in a statement, “may God forgive you.”