Clashes at edge of rich white suburb

Press, 19 February 1986, Page 10

Clashes at edge of rich white suburb

NZPA-Reuter Johannesburg Nine people have died in three days of running battles between the police and black people in the debris-strewn streets of the township of Alexandra on the doorstep of affluent white Johannesburg. South African security forces clamped a ring of armour around Alexandra yesterday after the police confirmed four more deaths there — three blacks shot by the police and a black policeman shot by rioters.

Soldiers in steel helmets, wielding semi-auto-matic rifles, guarded every entrance to the township, silhouetted by searchlights that swept surrounding fields to pick out any blacks who might try to leave. The police extended a ban on news media coverage in Alexandra to the whole area around the township. At least five people died in a week-end of bitter fighting in Alexandra. Residents say the death toll is much higher.

Three of seven “eminent persons” chosen by the Commonwealth to seek peace formulas for South Africa after two years of unabated black unrest, began a visit yesterday.

Thre three — the former Austraian Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, a former Nigerian head of State, Lieutenant-General Olusegun Obasanjo, and the World Council of Churches president, Nita Barrow — met Government Ministers in Cape Town yesterday.