Bringing the War to Whites

By JANICE C. SIMPSON

As scenes of terrorist carnage unfolded in Vienna and Rome, a spasm of racial violence shattered seasonal hopes of peace and goodwill across South Africa. For the country's whites, all signs appeared to point to a new and ominous phase of killing, one that seemed to bear out recent warnings by the outlawed African National Congress (A.N.C.) that "soft" targets--meaning unarmed civilians, including whites--would no longer be off limits. Nonetheless, blacks suffered the brunt of the year-end violence. At least five people died in the township of Soweto, as militants fought with migrant workers who refused to observe a "black Christmas" boycott called by the militants to honor those who had died since the violence began in September 1984. In Natal province, 58 blacks were killed when 2,000 Zulus and 3,000 members of the Pondo tribe, armed with spears, shields, clubs and shotguns, clashed in a Christmas Day battle sparked by tribal and political rivalries.

To blacks and whites alike, the most troubling event took place two days before Christmas, as holiday shoppers crowded the gaily decorated arcades of the Sanlam shopping center in Amanzimtoti, 18 miles south of Durban. Outside an ice-cream parlor, a crowd of parents and children had gathered around a festive display featuring Santa Claus when a bomb hidden in a nearby garbage bin exploded. Within seconds, the scene of holiday merriment was transformed into grim mayhem. Five whites, among them a two-year-old child, were killed. In all, 61 people, including several blacks, were injured.

Until now, South African whites, who for the most part live in segregated enclaves that exclude blacks, have been well insulated from such violence. Indeed, of the 850 South Africans killed in the country-wide unrest in 1985, only 15 have been white civilians. While many whites have been concerned about the black unrest and attendant violence, few felt immediately threatened. The Sanlam shopping center bombing has shaken that confidence.

With good reason. It was the third time in eight days that whites had been victims of racially motivated violence. Two days before, an unidentified non-white youth threw a hand grenade under a van parked on a crowded Durban street, injuring eight whites. On Dec. 15, six whites were killed when their truck hit a land mine as they drove along a road near the Zimbabwe border. The A.N.C. admitted that it had planted the device, as well as six others that have killed seven and injured eleven since November. Predictably, the government of State President P.W. Botha promptly blamed the A.N.C. for the Sanlam bombing. But the organization's silence has led some analysts to speculate that the incident may have been the work of a militant A.N.C. offshoot.

Members of the right-wing Conservative Party hotly denounced the attacks and called for Botha to retaliate by cracking down on the rebels and their supporters. Later in the week Lesotho, one of the neighboring countries the South African government has long accused of harboring A.N.C. rebels, claimed that its territory had been raided by South African commandos who gunned down nine A.N.C. members and sympathizers. Officially, Pretoria denied any involvement, but, warned the State Security Council, South Africa's neighbors "must be urged to realize that if this menace is allowed to continue, all the people of southern Africa will pay a heavy price."

Liberal whites also voiced distress at the Sanlam bombing. "There can be only total condemnation," declared Helen Suzman, an opposition member of Parliament and a long-standing antiapartheid activist. The financial daily Business Day predicted that the blast had destroyed chances for peaceful negotiations between the A.N.C. and the government. More-over, the paper said, the prospects for the release of imprisoned A.N.C. Leader Nelson Mandela "have faded."

Pretoria, however, seemed to be more preoccupied with Mandela's wife Winnie, 51, who is known as "the mother of the nation" by black activists. In 1977 the government banished her to Brandfort, a remote settlement in the Orange Free State. Since then she has not been permitted to live in her home in Soweto, outside Johannesburg. Even so, she returned there in August after unidentified arsonists fire bombed her Brandfort residence. Not surprisingly, Mandela blamed the government for that bombing. When police officers arrived last week with new orders that ended the forced exile in Brandfort but still prohibited her from entering Soweto, Mandela refused to accept the official papers or to leave the house.

After three hours of heated discussion, police officers dragged Mandela from the two-bedroom house and drove her outside the district limits. She returned to Soweto early the next morning, and was arrested by security officials and forcibly carried away In Washington, U.S. officials expressed concern "that Mrs. Mandela's arrest could lead to further escalation of violence in South Africa," and called for her immediate release. A Johannesburg judge charged Mandela with violating her restriction order but released her without requesting bail. A trial is scheduled for Jan. 22. Said Mandela: "I am charged with a crime that does not exist in most of the democratic civilized world--being at home."

On Christmas Day she visited Nelson Mandela for 40 minutes at Pollsmoor Prison, eight miles outside of Cape Town. Afterward she told reporters that the holiday visit had been the saddest in the 23 years her husband has been in jail. Reason: the 67-year-old black nationalist leader has been kept in solitary confinement in the prison hospital while recovering from a prostate-gland operation he underwent last month. "Christmas has ceased to be of any specific meaning to the oppressed people of this country," she declared. "Christmas has become a day of mourning."

Others, however, struggled to keep their faith. In his Christmas Day sermon at St. Mary's Cathedral in Johan nesburg, Nobel Prizewinner Bishop Desmond Tutu urged a congregation of some 400 blacks and whites to work toward peace and justice. Said Tutu: "Let us work so that Christmas 1986, unlike Christmas 1985, will be one where all of us, black and white, will be able to say, indeed, 'God is with us.' " It was a prayer that all South Africans could share. --By Janice C. Simpson. Reported by Peter Hawthorne/Johannesburg

With reporting by Reported by Peter Hawthorne/Johannesburg