Blacks reject Govt plan

Press, 22 July 1980, Page 8

Blacks reject Govt plan

NZPA Johannesburg!! The leaders of six black tribal homelands in South Africa have rejected the constitutional reform plan proposed by' the white-minority Government as long as the black majority is excluded from participation. The plan, calls for the creation of an advisory President’s council that would include mixed-race and Indian members. In the past, these non-white groups — who together number about 4 million — have been excluded from the formation of national policy, which is the fief of the 4.5 million whites and their leaders.

The plan, set out in the report of a commission headed by the Interior Minis ter (M r Alwyn Schlebusch), also envisages a separate council made up Of representatives of South Africa’s more than 18 million blacks. The black council would be a consultative body to the President’s council. The six leaders of the black homelands (called Bantustans in South Africa) met. in a hotel at Johannesburg airport, and their spokesman said afterwards: “The inclusion of blacks in the President’s council is nonnegotiable.” The six did, however, leave the door open to fut-

ure agreement on the constitutional project if the Government of Pieter Botha changed the plan to include blacks. ■ In its present form, the plan has been rejected by the Inkatha political movement of the Zulu chief, Gatsha Buthelezi, and by the white Opposition in Parliament. Moreover, the mixedrace Labour Party and' the Indian Reform Party have announced categorically that they would oppose the plan as long as blacks were not] given equal status under it. j . At least one black man was killed and two were seriously injured in disorders and stoning incidents in the Eastern Cape at the weekend, a police spokesman has said. • • 1 The man died in hospital at Grahamstown near Port Elizabeth after the police used tear gas and fired birdshot to break up an unruly crowd of about 5000 at a funeral who stoned police and other vehicles, the spokesman said. He said that birdshot had been fired as a,last .resort to save lives. • > In other . incidents in the Eastern Cape.industrial town of Uitenhage the Volkswagen factory,;’scene of a recent pay .strike by black workers, was stoned and some windows were broken.