NON-WHITE MOURNERS AT VERWOERD FUNERAL

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31162, 12 September 1966, Page 13

NON-WHITE MOURNERS AT VERWOERD FUNERAL

(N.Z.P A. Reuter—Copyright) PRETORIA, September 11. The assassinated South African Premier, Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd, was buried at Pretoria today in a State funeral which kept strictly to the principles he lived f or —with the non-white mourners carefully segregated from the whites.

In a vast open-air amphitheatre which had been converted into a church, the dignitaries of South Africa’s non - white population watched the service from a separate block of seats.

However, they were close to the area of chief mourners, including Cabinet Ministers, and observers said this conformed with Dr. Verwoerd’s thinking on racial matters — that non-whites should be “separate but equal.” It was an intensely hot. still day, relieved by a few rare gusts of wind, the muffled drumming of brass bands and the dull boom of saluting guns fired at oneminute intervals. Several women fainted during the service but Dr. Verwoerd’s widow, Mrs Betsie Verwoerd, sat composed but pale, in a simple black dress. Also looking pale and drawn was an important mourner in the front row— Mr lan Smith, Premier of the Rhodesian regime. Private Citizen He flew in to attend as a private citizen, not as an official government leader, because of protocol problems. South Africa has not yet given de jure recognition to his regime. The African Chief Minister of the Transkei, Chief Kaiser Matanzima, head of the first of Dr. Verwoerd’s “Bantustans” (Bantu states), sat apart with the other nonwhite dignitaries during the service. “We have lost the man but thank God we have not lost the message of his life,” declared the funeral orator, the Rev. J. S. Gericke, Moderator

of the largest of three Dutch Rerformed Churches in South Africa. 250,000 Watched More than 250,000 people watched the slow, shuffling procession as the coffin was borne to a grave plot known in Pretoria as “heroes’ acre,” where prominent South Africans are buried. Groups of non-whites were dotted among the dense crowds. The coffin was carried through the streets on a gun carriage escorted by 38 mounted police, 400 troops and an Air Force band. A long queue of mourners’ black limousines followed.

The cortege halted briefly in Church square, hub of the city, dominated by a statue of bearded and top-hatted Paul Kruger, last President of the former Transvaal Republic. Party To Meet After the service at the amphitheatre three Cabinet Ministers whose portfolios concern non-whites, left their places to shake hands with

Chief Matanzima and other non-white leaders. They were the Minister of African Administration and Development, Mr Michie] Botha, the Coloured Affairs Minister, Mr Marais Viljoen, and the Indian Affairs Minister, Senator Alfred Trollip. Members of Dr. Verwoerd’s Nationalist Party will meet on Tuesday to name a new Prime Minister.