S.A. forces strike at kingdom’s capital

Press, 10 December 1982, Page 8

S.A. forces strike at kingdom’s capital

NZPA-Reuter Pretoria South African Defence Force units had killed about 30 guerrillas of the banned African National Congress in a strike yesterday on Maseru, capital of Lesotho, said the Chief of the Defence Force, General Constand Viljoen. •Five women and two children had died in the attacks' on 12 A.N.C. targets and four members of the Defence Force had been wounded. General Viljoen said that the A.N.C. had been planning terrorist actions in South

Africa and the black homelands of Transkei and Ciskei over the Christmas festive season. The Defence Force units had had strict instructions to avoid women and children, and regretted that innocent people had suffered, he said. The A.N.C. headquarters had been deliberately sited in housing suburbs of the Lesotho capital. h? alleged. The strike force had already returned to base. It was the first reported South African attack into the landlocked mountain king-

dom. which is a member of the Commonwealth. It came nearly two years after a similar raid bn a suburb of Maputo, the Mozambican capital, on A.N.C. headquarters buildings there. Casualties in that raid were given as 30 A.N.C. guerrillas and ' two South Africans killed. General Vijoen said that South Africa had given repeated warnings to the governments of neighbouring countries not to allow guerrillas to use their territories and facilities as springboards against South Africa. The A.N.C. targets hit in the raids on Maseru, which lies just across the border in Lesotho, had served as planning control headquarters for terrorist action against South Africa. Transkei and Ciskei. and were used as a springboard for attacks against them, he said. He alleged that several “well-trained terrorists" had moved from other southern African States into Lesotho over the last few months to execute plans for “deeds of terror" over Christmas. General Vijoen said that “for understandable reasons," details of how the strike early today was made could not be revealed. The A.N.C. had regularly received advice from the Palestine Liberation Organisation, he said. This echoed a recent speech by the Defence Minister, General Magnus Malan, that the A.N.C. planned to

step up its attacks inside South Africa as a result of increased co-operation with the P.L.O. The Defence Force said that the women and children killed in the raid were caught in cross-fire between South African troops and A.N.C. guerrillas. Radio Lesotho said that the raid had been made by troops aboard five helicopters and that two South African refugees resident in Lesotho were among the dead. Officials were still trying to assess the exact death toll, it said. An official at the border crossing post just outside Maseru said it had not been closed and traffic was crossing normally.