South Africa Battle At the Burial Grounds

By Jill Smolowe

As early as 6 a.m., the streets of Soweto were mobbed with mourners determined to bury their dead. Militant black youths roamed the sprawling township outside Johannesburg, enforcing a work stoppage that had been called to honor the 24 Sowetans felled a week earlier by police gunfire. Wielding sjamboks, or plastic whips, the young radicals chased commuters from bus stops and train stations and pelted moving vehicles with rocks. One bus was halted and burned on the spot. Security forces moved in rapidly, spraying the streets with tear gas. By 10 a.m., thousands of blacks had congregated outside the locked gates of Jabavu Stadium for the funeral services. Their prayers for the dead were never said. Police encircled the crowd and unleashed canisters of tear gas, scattering the mourners.

Last week's violence in Soweto seemed virtually inevitable. Two days before the mourners gathered, authorities had announced restrictions clearly designed to derail township plans for a mass funeral for those who had died in the previous week's police crackdown on rent strikers. When outraged Sowetans defiantly ignored the ban, even sacred burial grounds were transformed into battlefields.

At the Avalon Cemetery, some 8,000 blacks congregated to bury 15 of their slain fellows. As the crowd sang forbidden songs of freedom and chanted banned slogans, security forces moved in. New bursts of blinding gas forced the mourners to flee in all directions, for the moment leaving some of the coffins only half buried. The next day several of the remaining bodies were buried without incident. But the clash of wills between the police and many of Soweto's 2 million blacks is far from over.

Also unresolved is the test of wills shaping up between President Reagan and the U.S. Congress. Last week Reagan ignored congressional demands for tough new economic sanctions against South Africa and announced the extension of the limited measures that he imposed by Executive Order last September. Among them were bans on imports of gold Krugerrands, new loans to the government and sales of computers for use by security agencies.

The presidential statement included an admission that the yearlong program "clearly has not done what we intended for it to do" to end apartheid. Reagan also held out the possibility of additional actions. But they will have to be substantial if the President hopes to head off the sturdier sanctions that Congress is expected to pass in the next few weeks.

Meanwhile, Japan plunged into the sanctions debate. During a one-hour meeting in Tokyo between South African Foreign Minister Roelof ("Pik") Botha and his Japanese counterpart, Tadashi Kuranari, Botha was told that Japan, one of South Africa's main trading partners, may apply punitive new sanctions unless Pretoria moves quickly to end apartheid.

The European Community may announce new sanctions this week, following a weekend meeting outside London of the Community's twelve foreign ministers. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's stalwart stance against sanctions appears to be easing. During a visit to Washington this week, British Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe is expected to inform U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz that Britain will join with the rest of the European Community to ban imports of South African coal, iron and steel. Preparations are also under way for U.S. and British officials to meet in an undisclosed location with Oliver Tambo, president of the outlawed African National Congress.

In South Africa, a decision handed down last week by the Supreme Court of Natal struck at key provisions of the nationwide state of emergency that is * now entering its fourth month. The court voided a measure empowering the police commissioner to prohibit any activity that he thought might endanger public order. It was under this provision that Pretoria announced its ban on mass funerals. Although the ruling applies only to the province of Natal, lawyers in the Transvaal are now pondering whether they could win a similar judgment, which would permit future gatherings to be held in Soweto.

The court also invalidated provisions enabling the Minister of Law and Order to seize or close a publication for printing allegedly subversive statements. Such powers, the court wrote in a 54-page judgment, are "objectionable and unduly excessive." Stephen Mulholland, managing director of South African Associated Newspapers, applauded the ruling. Said he: "It would be a great pity if the government was to act in a way which indicated that it didn't feel that this judgment is of considerable importance and needs to be respected and observed."

The press decision, though, did not affect tough new curbs announced last week by the government in its continuing tussle with reporters. The new strictures were imposed to close a loophole in the complex media regulations. The government had earlier conceded that some prohibitions were invalid because the measures had not been published as required by law. As a result, reporters were able to provide detailed accounts when the bloody confrontation that left 24 dead erupted a fortnight ago in Soweto. Last week, as the township girded for further violence, Pretoria issued the most stringent press restrictions yet, this time properly spelling them out in the Government Gazette. Reporters were prohibited from coming "within sight" of any unrest, security action or restricted gathering. Last week's funeral was thus off limits, forcing journalists to rely on word-of-mouth reports from Soweto.

As pieced together from the various accounts, the latest showdown began taking shape on Wednesday, just 24 hours after the government had imposed new restrictions on political gatherings. Police went from house to house in Soweto, displaying the text of the new orders: no mass funerals, no outdoor ceremonies, no flags or slogans, no gatherings of more than 200 mourners. The police asked the families of the dead to sign a paper agreeing to these rules. The families refused. Police then went to the area's mortuaries and warned undertakers not to release any bodies for burial without official permission. When a priest filed an urgent court petition in Johannesburg to have the orders set aside, the request was denied. Undeterred, the families and antiapartheid organizations pushed ahead with plans for the funeral.

In the early-morning hours, the radical black youths known as comrades began their violent patrols at commuter platforms. At the Phomolong station, a burst of gunfire was believed to have claimed as many as three lives, and a woman chased by sjambok-swinging youths fell beneath a moving train and was killed. One unconfirmed report said three youths were shot by four men whose car they had tried to force from the highway leading from the township. The unrest forced most people to abide by the work stoppage. In Soweto, road traffic halted and shops remained closed. The Labor Monitoring Group, an independent agency in Johannesburg, reported that 72% of Sowetans who work in manufacturing and 85% employed in the retail sector did not show up for their jobs.

Despite the chaos, mourners steadily converged on Soweto's St. Paul's Church, where the police two weeks ago opened fire on crowds of barricaded youths during the bloody rent strike. As tensions rose last Thursday, Archbishop Desmond Tutu telephoned the church and urged his religious colleagues to call off the planned funeral and have everyone return home peacefully. Bishop Simeon Nkoane promptly conveyed Tutu's message to the people in the streets.

Meanwhile Dr. Nthato Motlana, chairman of the Soweto Civic Association, made one last attempt to persuade the police to allow a memorial service in St. Paul's. When that request was denied, Motlana entered the church and pleaded with 300 people seated in the pews, "Let's win freedom on our own terms." Some heeded the various warnings and went home. Others headed for Jabavu Stadium, where thousands had been waiting hours to participate in the memorial service. Their patience was rewarded with bursts of tear gas.

The final stop in the procession was Avalon Cemetery. Security forces broke up the crowd and seized four undertakers for ignoring police orders to maintain custody of the bodies. The four were later released. In the end, the deceased got the burial that the government wanted: no flags, no slogans, no crowds even approaching 200 mourners.

With reporting by Bruce W. Nelan/Johannesburg