75,000 Pay Respects to a Slain Leader : South Africa: ANC leaders and friends file past coffin in stadium to mourn Chris Hani.

More than 75,000 mourners filed past Chris Hani’s open casket here Sunday, paying their last respects to the slain black leader on the same soccer field where he once led throngs in soulful pleas for liberation.

For eight hours, top African National Congress leaders, friends, followers and foreign diplomats lined up on the cool, sunny day to view Hani’s body, which was dressed in the green camouflage uniform of the ANC guerrilla army he once commanded.

An arrangement of chrysanthemums, gladioli and carnations surrounded a yellow hammer and sickle, representing the Communist Party that Hani headed. And some friends cried softly as they gazed at the body and Hani’s military cap, which rested on a pillow atop the casket.

“It’s painful to see such things,” said Karlos, a member of the ANC’s army who declined to give his last name. “It’s not going to be so easy to replace a man of his caliber.”

Elsewhere in South Africa, police said that 17 blacks were killed in separate shootings Sunday night in Sebokeng, a volatile township south of Johannesburg. Authorities quoted witnesses as saying the attacks were carried out by four black men driving two cars, one of which was stolen and later found abandoned and gutted. The motive for the attacks was unknown.

At the stadium in Soweto, mourners carrying posters with Hani’s picture sang ANC songs, chanted and applauded as Nelson Mandela and members of the executive committees of the ANC and its ally, the Communist Party, arrived one by one.

Thousands of mourners remained in the stadium for an all-night vigil, the last official act of mourning before today’s funeral at the stadium and burial in Germiston, a suburb of Johannesburg not far from where Hani lived.

The peaceful procession marked the end of a week of right-wing violence and black protests that resulted in rioting in several cities.

And South African police were preparing for possible trouble during the funeral, which will be broadcast nationwide and is expected to attract more than 100,000 people. Right-wing whites have warned that they will use guns to protect their property if it is threatened by any of the mourners.

“Mr. Hani’s funeral will be a decisive day,” said Hernus Kriel, the government’s minister of law and order. “It will prove to the world whether we are a civilized nation. The attitude of the police will be, ‘If you act within the law, you do not have to fear the security forces, but if you transgress the law, force will be used. . . .’ ”

President Frederik W. de Klerk, in an interview on state-run TV Sunday night, said he was resisting calls for a major police crackdown. But he said the ANC’s plans to follow Hani’s funeral with six weeks of “mass action” protests and strikes is likely to “let loose more anger.”

“We must all, including the government, guard against overreaction, because this could cause a domino effect,” De Klerk said. He added that the ANC’s protest plans are an attempt to create the impression that political progress can be achieved through pressure instead of negotiations.

In a statement, the government said it did not plan to send an official representative to Hani’s funeral.

Hani, 50, was assassinated April 10 in the driveway of his home. On Sunday, police had two right-wing whites in custody for the attack: Janusz Walus, a 40-year-old Polish immigrant who was arrested with the murder weapon, and Clive Derby-Lewis, 57, leading member of the right-wing Conservative Party and former member of Parliament.

Cyril Ramaphosa, secretary general of the ANC, said the arrest of Derby-Lewis on Saturday indicated that Hani’s assassination was part of a conspiracy, previously denied by the police. And he said that right-wing whites intent on disrupting the funeral today “have to be stopped in their tracks.”

Mandela, the ANC president, and other leaders have pleaded for discipline and calm during the memorials. But the growing force of the extremist right, which opposes negotiations, combined with the increasingly militant rhetoric of ANC leaders and their youthful followers, who oppose talks, has raised fears of a race war in South Africa.

The threat posed by the right was evident Saturday, when a white extremist killed two ANC demonstrators during a peaceful march to commemorate Hani in Vanderbijlpark.

On the same day, Winnie Mandela led militant ANC supporters in chanting “Kill the Boers!” That slogan, a reference to the white Afrikaners responsible for apartheid, was broadcast on the main evening news program Saturday.

“The death of Mr. Hani has given a platform to the radicals,” Kriel said. “Black violence in this country is terrible. But there is one thing that can be worse, and that is white violence.”