Violence again in South Africa

Press, 22 July 1976, Page 8

Violence again in South Africa

iNZPA-Reuter Johannesburg Black rioting erupted on Tuesday, killing at least one man and injuring 20 in the second major outbreak of racial violence in South Africa within five weeks.

Trouble broke out at Indian and black townships outside Witbank, a coalmine city 56 miles east of Johannesburg when 3000 young Africans went on the rampage, burning and stoning cars and property belonging to whites, Indians, and Coloureds (mixed-race). The police said an African man had been killed. A four-

year-old white girl was among the injured. The police evacuated Indians from the trouble zone and sealed it off. Riot squads were sent from Pretoria, the administrative capital of South Africa, and army units were put on stand-by alert. At one stage, policemen fired into the air when they were threatened by a crowd trying to prevent them making an arrest. But by yesterday they were believed to have th’ crisis at Witbank under control. Trouble also broke out at Mhluzi, an African township near Middelburg, east of Witbank, and blacks went on the march near Carletonvilie, in western Johannesburg.

The violence coincided with the first day of the new school term, and the Government immediately ordered the schools closed. The trouble was minor compared with the violence that erupted last month in Soweto township and spread to other townships, claiming 176 lives in five days of rioting.

The police had anticipated trouble in Soweto, and schools remained closed there, but the township was quiet. The rioting last month broke out during a mass protest by Soweto students against the compulsory use of Afrikaans as a teaching language in black schools. The crder has since been rescinded.