Western envoys called on to attend whites’ funerals

Press, 20 December 1985, Page 6

Western envoys called on to attend whites’ funerals

NZPA-Reuter Johannesburg Three white victims of a land-mine planted by black guerrillas were to be buried today, and the South African Government has called on Western diplomats to attend the funeral. Earlier this month diplomats from 12 nations joined an estimated 50,000 people at a funeral for black people who died in clashes with the police in Pretoria’s Mamelodi township. The State-run radio said in a commentary, “The Western diplomatic representatives who so readily attended the recent mass funerals in Mamelodi would perhaps now efiider travelling to the funerals of the latest land-mine vic-

tims.” Four children and two women died on Monday when a mine blew apart a truck carrying two white families.

The banned African National Congress, the main guerrilla group has claimed responsibility. A British Embassy spokesman said in Pretoria that its diplomats had attended the Mamelodi funeral because they had close links with the people of the local townships. “We have not been going to funerals all over the country.” The United States Embassy said that the Ambassador, Herman Nickel, would send a private message of sympathy to the

families of the mine blast victims, voicing shock at what he called an act of violence. „The mine attacks over the last three weeks have provoked white outrage after 21 months of black protest violence, in which some 1000 people have died. Nearly all the victims of the unrest have been black In the remote bush area where the six died the army warned fanners yesterday that there could still be undetected mines around.

Local military commanders urged farmers to watch out; for more guerrilla incursions across the neaflfeZimbabwean border and wairhed them against hiring illegal immigrants as

farm labourers, saying that they often worked as A.N.C. contacts.

South Africa alleges that the guerrillas who planted the land-mines came and went from Zimbabwean territory, and has threatened “hot pursuit” raids across the frontier. Harare denies allowing guerrilla!; to launch attacks from its territory.

In Pretoria, an army spokesman said yesterday that military representatives of the two countries would meet “next week in the Messina area, near where the 7 mines were planted, to discuss border security. • B Two television *’Srew members working for -the

British-based World Television News who were arrested on Wednesday will appear in court today charged under the Criminal Procedure Act with inciting public violence. Roger and Patrick Lucey, both white South Africans, were detained with 12 blacks at- the Moutse tribal district, about 100 km northeast of Pretoria, after the police fired tear-gas and shot-guns to disperse rioters.

The Luceys, who have not been given bail, were allegedly in Moutse during a demonstration by some 120,000 local people against the incorporation of the area into the tribal homeland of kwaNdebele.