Voters scorn S.A. poll as violence erupts

Press, 30 August 1984, Page 11

Voters scorn S.A. poll as violence erupts

NZPA-Reuter Johannesburg South African Indians showed their contempt yesterday for a new raciallysegregated Parliament by staying away from elections on a day marked by brutal clashes between the police and anti-Government demonstrators. Only a fifth of the Indian electorate voted for the controversial “power-sharing” Parliament, which will exclude the country’s 73 per cent majority black population. The Internal Affairs Minister, Mr F. W. de Klerk, blamed the low turnout partly on intimidation, and said that the Government would go ahead with its new Constituticn. The turnout at

the polls ranged from 6.9 per cent to 33 per cent, he said. In the worst day of violence in two weeks of protests against the elections, riot police fired scores of rubber bullets and teargas canisters in violent confrontations.

More than 100 people, including four policemen, were injured in clashes throughout South Africa. The demonstrators were urging a poll boycott on the grounds that the exclusion of blacks from power entrenches the Government’s apartheid policy of racial segregation. The worst violence was at the Indian township of Lenasia near Johannesburg, the police and medical

sources said. The clashes continued after the polls closed, with petrol bombs being hurled at police patrols, who replied with volleys of teargas. A doctor at a clinic in Lenasia said about 80 people had been treated for what he called mild injuries from the clashes, including some broken bones and lacerations.

In one incident, riot police surrounded a van into which a group of protesters had fled, smashed its windows and whipped and beat the men and women inside, witnesses said.

A middle-aged Indian man, Sonny Ragoo, screamed as blood streamed down his face after a clash

with police, “I am against the system. I will never vote.” One white policeman was taken to hospital unconscious with head injuries after protesters threw a barrage of stones at police in riot gear, the eyewitnesses said. Several reporters said they were beaten by the police and political party workers. One woman reporter said her earring was ripped out and her camera smashed to the ground.

Mr de Klerk said on State-controlled television that with 32 of the 40 constituency results counted, about 20 per cent of the 410,000 registered Indians had voted. The new tricameral Parliament for which the Indians were voting will be white-dominated but is aimed at giving a limited voice to the country’s 2.8 million Coloureds and 870,000 Indians. Fewer than one in three Coloured voters turned out for their elections last week.