South Africa Barricades in a Black Township

By William E. Smith

Even in South Africa, a country that has become almost numbed to racial violence, it was a night to remember -- or to try to forget. In Soweto, the sprawling African township (pop. 2 million) outside Johannesburg, three Land Rovers full of police pulled up to a burning roadblock constructed of garbage cans, tires, logs and scrap metal. Along the barricade stood a crowd of angry youths. Some Sowetans claim that the trouble actually started two hours earlier, when police broke up a meeting called to discuss the threatened eviction of people who were refusing to pay their rent. The government, on the other hand, maintained that the flashpoint occurred at the roadblock, when someone threw a hand grenade at the Land Rovers, wounding four policemen, including three blacks. Both sides agree on what happened next. Police sprayed gunfire into the shrieking crowd, killing eight people and wounding 68 on the spot. Three hours later, security forces attacked a second barricade, killing four more.

Similar incidents occurred in Soweto all through Tuesday night. Said one resident later: "No one got any sleep. We heard shots all the time, even though the streets seemed empty." The radical youths known as comrades went from house to house, ordering residents to keep their lights off so that police could not see what was going on.

The next morning Soweto remained tense as security forces patrolled the streets in armored personnel carriers and other vehicles. For once, journalists were able to observe many of the events first-hand, since press restrictions had been relaxed two weeks ago as the result of court challenges. Inside the township, the comrades still manned most of their barricades. In White City, the section of Soweto where some of the worst bloodshed had occurred, activists refused to let residents go to work. Before the week was over, at least 20 people had been killed by police in the bloodiest confrontation since the current nationwide state of emergency was declared on June 12.

The underlying issue behind last week's violence was a rent strike, supported by a substantial portion of Soweto's black population, against the township's black councilors. The system of renting houses within the townships has been a source of resentment for years. Until recently, blacks were unable to purchase property in the townships because they were legally regarded as citizens of some distant "homeland." Last year, however, the government changed its policy and permitted them to buy township homes. Some 10,000 families have since done so, but most residents cannot afford the $800 or more that it costs to purchase a small, four-room house of brick or cement- block construction. Therefore they continue to rent their homes for an average cost of $20 per month, with perhaps $20 more going for electricity.

Except for those relatively few dwellings that have been sold to private owners, all buildings in Soweto and the country's other black townships are the property of the government and are operated by the Ministry of Constitutional Development and Planning. In 1983 the running of the townships was turned over to black councils, though the administrators in overall charge continued to be white civil servants. Members of those councils were elected by township inhabitants at that time, but the voting was boycotted by 90% of the black electorate.

The councils have responsibility for collecting rents and providing housing, electricity, water, sanitation and other services. When costs went up, the councils hiked the rents, and the townships rebelled. In September 1984, a rent strike in some of the townships to the south of Johannesburg marked the beginning of the current period of nationwide unrest.

This year, as violence has spread across South Africa, so has the rent strike. According to one survey, partial or nearly total boycotts are in effect in 42 townships, costing the local councils the equivalent of $380,000 a day in revenues. By mid-August, according to the same survey, as many as 300,000 black families were refusing to pay their rent.

One reason the boycott has been so widespread is that many people have been persuaded or coerced by the young activists to join the strike or suffer the consequences. To many of the township's residents, the choice is between paying the rent and risking retaliation by the militants or withholding the rent and facing eviction.

Aware of the problem, the Soweto council has set up an office in Johannesburg, where township residents can supposedly pay the money without intimidation. But even those who would prefer to do this have heard rumors that such offices are full of spies for the comrades back home, and so in many cases they do nothing. For others, the issue is not just the rent but the sense of being forced to pay tribute to support the apartheid system.

Pressure had been mounting since June, when the majority of Soweto's legal residents joined the boycott. In July, vowing to expel the "incorrigibles," the town council began to issue eviction notices, but twice extended the deadline. Preparing for trouble, the comrades made door-to-door calls to warn residents that if they paid rent, their houses would be burned. Last week, when the council evicted four families, trouble broke out almost immediately.

The new violence in Soweto left blacks more embittered than ever. Black leaders maintained that the number of deaths was closer to 30 than the 20 the government claimed and called for the resignation of the township council. Said the Rev. Frank Chikane, a Sowetan civic leader: "We are appalled by this cold-blooded massacre of our people. This was one of the darkest days in our history." The South African Council of Churches criticized the Soweto councilors for their eviction policy, pointing out that the rent issue had become a "political time bomb" that could "explode in townships throughout South Africa if not wisely handled." By week's end the government of State President P.W. Botha yielded to pressure from all sides and announced that an inquiry into the Soweto massacre would be held.

At the same time that the government was facing charges about the deaths in Soweto, many South Africans were appalled at allegations that the Rev. Smangaliso Mkhatshwa, a black Roman Catholic priest and the secretary-general of the South African Catholic Bishops' Conference, had been tortured by police while in detention under the emergency laws. In an affidavit, Father Mkhatshwa, who has been detained without trial for almost three months, charged last week that he had been forced to stand blindfolded and almost naked before his interrogators for 30 hours on Aug. 20 and 21. Twice during this time, he said, "shots were fired from behind and just above the back of my head."

Mkhatshwa recounted his tale in chilling detail. Said he: "A creepy creature or instrument was (placed on) my backside. From there it would move up and down my legs, thighs and invariably ended up biting my genitals. When I cringed with pain, they would laugh." A liquid was smeared on his legs, he said, that caused him much "discomfort." He was given nothing to drink and was not allowed to use a toilet for the entire 30 hours of his interrogation.

The priest's lawyers asked that doctors be allowed to examine him and, if they can confirm that he was tortured, that he be released. In reply, the Minister of Law and Order, Louis Le Grange, formally assured the Supreme Court in Pretoria that the police would not in future assault Father Mkhatshwa, adding that this was not an admission of the truth of the priest's allegations.

) Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of last week's violence is that it showed anew how the battle against apartheid is inflaming the whole society. Though South Africa's continuing convulsions are essentially caused by a political struggle between the country's 24 million blacks and its 5 million whites, an ever increasing share of the actual fighting is being conducted by blacks against other blacks, to the ill-disguised delight of the Botha government.

In some cases, such as during last week's turbulence in Soweto, black radicals are fighting against moderates in their own community, intimidating or even killing anyone who will not follow their demands. In other instances, enraged and radicalized mobs within the black townships are pitted against the blacks who serve as local officials or are otherwise identified with the hated white authorities.

Early last week, for example, Evelyn Sabelo, the wife of one of the leaders of the 6 million-member Zulu tribe, was killed outside her home by black assailants who were armed with a hand grenade and AK-47 assault rifles. Following that incident, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, the head of the Zulus and one of the country's most powerful black moderates, declared, "The black civil war that I warned about has now materialized." Two days later, a Soweto town councilor, Sydney Ndeshe Mkwanazi, died after being ambushed by a gang of township youths who hacked him with pangas, knives and axes. They were reportedly angry about the death of a friend who had previously been killed by one of Mkwanazi's bodyguards.

The same day, another Soweto councilor, Siegfried Manthata, who heads a group dedicated to "crime control," fled with his family through his backyard and took refuge with neighbors after a mob stormed his house. The attackers hurled rocks through the windows, cut the phone line, doused the dwelling with gasoline and set it on fire.

In mid-June, when the Pretoria government declared the national state of emergency, white officials predicted that the bloodshed that had wracked the country sporadically for almost two years would soon end. But last week's violence in Soweto appeared to demonstrate instead that the situation is taking a new and even more dangerous turn. It has deep roots in the townships where many of South Africa's 24 million blacks live, increasingly angry and frustrated not only at a repressive white government but at any of their neighbors who seem to tolerate it.

With reporting by Bruce W. Nelan/Johannesburg