S.A. police tighten security

Press, 30 May 1981, Page 9

S.A. police tighten security

NZPA-Reuter Johannesburg The South African police have tightened security throughout the country after black nationalist guerrilla attacks which included a bomb blast outside an Army recruiting office in Durban. A police spokesman said that check points had been set up, on many roads but he declined to say what other measures were being taken. He said. "We don’t, want to telL the enemy what we are doing.” The early-morning Durban explosion, which caused extensive damage but no casu-

allies, came only 48 hours after other bomb and grenade attacks for which the outlawed African National Congress has • responsibility. The wave of guerrilla attacks coincided with the final week of celebrations marking the twentieth anniversary of South Africa’s becoming a republic. The white electorate voted in 1961 to leave the Commonwealth after international criticism of its apartheid policies. The anniversary celebrations have sparked off big protests throughout the country by opposition groups of

air races. Students have held demonstrations and boycotted classes. The police said that they had arrested several dozen students, including the president of the National Student Union, Mr Andrew Boraine, the son of an opposition member of Parliament, Dr Alex Boraine. He is being held under a law which enables the police to keep him in jail for an unlimited number of consecutive two-week stretches without having to bring him before a court. Dr. Boraine, who is the

executive chairman of the Progressive Federal Party,' said that he had been refused' permission to visit his son and that he had been given no reason for the arrest. The celebrations have been condemned by many churches • and other influential organisations, which have said that South Africa’s disenfranchised non-whites, who form a big majority, have nothing to celebrate. People travelling by road said that they had been stopped frequently at road blocks and that their cars had been searched.