Burning Bridges Between Races

A crackdown on dissent, "come hell or high water"

Under cover of darkness last week, South African police loosed the country's most draconian wave of repression in almost two decades. Cruising the predawn streets of ghettos from Durban and Cape Town to Soweto outside Johannesburg, they detained within hours many of the best-known black leaders in the country, more than 50 in all. In addition, under orders issued by Pretoria's Minister of Justice James Kruger, South Africa's largest black newspaper, The World (circ. 146,000), was banned and its editor, Percy Qoboza, jailed without charges.

No fewer than 18 black and interracial organizations were banned, among them the Black People's Convention, whose leader, Steven Biko, died while in police custody in September, igniting a fresh upsurge of protest (TIME, Sept. 26); and the Christian Institute, led by the Rev. C.F. Beyers Naude, an articulate, antiracist Afrikaner. Also banned were seven white activists and journalists associated with the black cause. One of South Africa's most outspoken white journalists --Editor Donald Woods of the East London Daily Dispatch--was told of his banning as he prepared to leave the country on a speaking tour in Britain and the U.S.

Banning and detention are cruel but not unusual punishments under South Africa's strict security laws. Banned individuals are, in effect, under house arrest for as long as the Justice Minister chooses. They may not contact more than one person at a time, other than immediate family. Their movements are restricted and they may not be quoted in the press. Individuals apprehended on suspicion of posing a threat to South Africa's security, under a new law passed last year, can be detained indefinitely without trial. Justifying the harsh steps, Kruger explained to the nation on a TV broadcast that the government had acted swiftly to defuse a dangerous "revolutionary climate," fueled by "a small group of anarchists." Pretoria, he vowed, would re-establish the "total stability" that preceded last year's bloody riots in Soweto.

Foreign reaction to the crackdown was immediate and caustic. State Department Spokesman Hodding Carter III said the Administration was "deeply disturbed" by what "seems to represent a very serious step backward." Other officials suggested that Washington might now be willing to consider diplomatic and economic sanctions against the South African regime. "I think they panicked," said U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young. "They are frightened, and they are committing political and social suicide." Ambassador William Bowdler was called back to Washington from Pretoria for "consultations."

Inside South Africa, both the black and white communities initially were almost too stunned to protest. On the day of the government's move, cordons of security forces sealed off Soweto before any demonstrations could get under way. More than 150 blacks and Indians--and a handful of white sympathizers--were arrested in protests that followed the first shock. As TIME Johannesburg Bureau Chief William McWhirter reports: "There was little joy in Pretoria. Even among Afrikaners, the mood was one of apprehension and depression."

Some verbal assaults on the government crackdown were like cries of pain. Said Member of Parliament Helen Suzman of the small Progressive Party: "It is a complete admission by the government that it is unable to govern without resorting to absolute despotism." Added Chief Gatsha Buthelezi, titular head of the country's 5 million Zulus: "The government of this country is by jackboot as far as blacks are concerned." Even traditional supporters of the government were dismayed. The Afrikaans daily Die Transvaler lashed out: "Who can doubt that the naked fist of bullying authoritarianism is brandished for all to see?"

Why did the government choose so drastic a course of repression? TIME has learned that the debate on whether to stage the crackdown had been the dominant topic in Cabinet meetings since Biko's death last month led to a wave of protest and international condemnation. (At week's end the government had not yet released an autopsy report on Biko, but TIME learned that the cause of his death will be attributed officially to kidney disease. Signs of brain damage will be dismissed as inconclusive.)

The Cabinet was clearly aware of charges by the verkrampte (conservative) wing of the Nationalist Party that the government's power and authority were eroding in the face of protests by urban blacks. After studying probable responses from the business community and the press, the Cabinet decided--unanimously--to go ahead with the show of strength. Says one minister who was present: "We finally had to declare that we are the ones who govern, come hell or high water."

Despite the deaths of more than 600 black protesters in the past 16 months (most in Soweto's initial upheaval) and the detention of more than 2,500 others, right-wing Afrikaners believe the government has been too lenient in dealing with black unrest. As evidence, they point to a boycott by 200,000 students that has crippled most of the nation's Bantu school system. Another factor in the decision was South Africa's increasing economic difficulties. Since last year's rioting, foreign businessmen have been reluctant to invest in any long-term projects. Hard-liners argued that unless black unrest was crushed by a policy of kragdadigheid (extreme toughness), it would deepen that already wary mood among investors.

Prime Minister John Vorster was seemingly unimpressed by the counterargument that investors might abandon South Africa in the face of possible international economic sanctions. Campaigning at an election rally near Johannesburg the day after the police roundup, the Prime Minister told cheering supporters that protests from the U.S. and elsewhere were irrelevant. "We are not governed from overseas," he said. "We are governed in South Africa." As for threats that Washington's policy toward South Africa might change, the Prime Minister acidly mocked the Carter Administration: "It will be nice for a change if they make policy for themselves." His party's image is probably going to suffer, Vorster admitted, but he was willing to sacrifice that for the "safety and security" of the state.

In opting for so blunt an approach to security, the government burned the few remaining bridges between itself and the resentful black community. After last week's brutal reminder that white force is never far from the surface, however, most blacks will think twice before considering the option of guerrilla warfare. As for white moderates, the parties that speak for them may increase their protest vote in next month's parliamentary elections, but there is no chance that they can defeat the Nationals.

There are liberals who fear that the worst is yet to come, and that South Africa may turn into a dictatorship. Many see, in the closing of Qoboza's World, an implicit threat that the adamantly antigovernment English-language press might be the next target. Certainly, if the government now wants to push through newspaper laws that would place publications directly under government scrutiny, there is nothing to stop it.

But John Vorster is shrewd as well as stubborn. Having placated Afrikaners with a show of strength, he might after a suitably triumphant electoral victory release most of the detainees and reduce the threat to the nation's press. (Last week, in a little-noticed token of liberalization, the government reversed a decision that would have excluded black and Indian students from the mostly white Natal medical school.) But blacks and their white supporters would still have the memory of a vivid lesson--that the government has the legal authority to crush dissent any time it pleases.

In the long run, is naked power enough? Before his banning, Donald Woods answered no, in these words about the Afrikaans mentality: "Like the Kremlin, they think the enemy is words. But the enemy is thoughts. You can't legislate against thoughts. You can't detain them, or ban them, or restrict them, and that is why the present rulers of South Africa cannot survive. The thoughts of many are against them, and ultimately they themselves are too few."

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