Africans Arrested In Police Raids

Press, Volume C, Issue 29517, 19 May 1961, Page 11

Africans Arrested In Police Raids

< N Z PA .•Reuter—Copyright > CAPE TOWN, May 18. Police detained scores of Africans last night in raids on African townships, which were described by Police Commissioner H. J. Duplooy as “large-scale operations directed at the idler elements.”

The operations, conducted, the police said, as a result of ’’complaints by the public of intimidation and other alleged offences,” come less than two weeks before South Africa becomes a republic. Africans have threatened to boycott the republican celebrations by staying quietly at home during the last three days of the month. The secretary of the All. African Action Council, Mr Nelson Mandela, said today that Africans would not gather or hold processions which would be likely to result in clashes with the police. The "Rand Daily Mail” in Johannesburg said today that the police had discovered “secret” plans to bring thousands of non-whites into South African cities and towns on the last three days of this month to demonstrate against the Republic. Johannesburg's African townships were tense as

rumours of arrests spread last night. For the first time since the state of emergency last year, police stopped Africans on the streets to inspect their identity docu. meats. Police stopped hundreds of Africans at Pietermaritzburg, Natal, and asked to see their identity papers. Some Africans were detained. Police also set up road blocks at entrances to the city and stopped and inspected motor vehicles. Police rounded up scores of Africans who could not give a satisfactory account of themselves in Cape Town’s Langa and Nyanga African townships and took them away in police vans. Residents of Langa township reported that everything was calm there and said that those questioned had been treated with courtesy and consideration. A police officer said all those arre'ted would be brought before the courts within 48 hours.