Soweto mark passes with stiff media gag

Press, 18 June 1986, Page 10

Soweto mark passes with stiff media gag

NZPA-Reuter Johannesburg The tenth anniversary of the Soweto riots has passed with millions of black South Africans staying away from work and eight people reported killed in political violence.

The Government said it had thwarted plans by radicals to mark the anniversary with mass violence but a tough news media clampdown made it impossible for journalists to gauge the extent of black protest. Reporting curbs that came into force with a nation-wide state of emergency on Thursday were reinforced with new rules barring reporters from describing any security operation or visiting a black township. "There is probably less

freedom in South Africa at present than there is in Communist Russia,” said a white Opposition politician, Ray Swart.

The streets of central Johannesburg, where black people normally outnumber whites, were eerily quiet. Johannesburg’s black satellite city of Soweto, where student protests sparked the riots in 1976, also appeared to be calm, many residents staying indoors. The Government’s Information Bureau said black absenteeism around the country had ranged from 30 to 90 per cent. The bureau, now the sole official source on political violence, said eight people had died violently, bringing to 31 the number killed since the state of emergency was

declared. Of the latest victims five had been killed in black violence against blacks and the others killed during security operations, it said.

The Law and Order Minister, Mr Louis le Grange, told Parliament that there were people in detention "who may be urgently needed for dialogue — but because of their activities it is not possible to talk until law and order is maintained.”

“Unless we do everything possible to have the proper maintenance of law and order we won’t have the positive dialogue necessary for our future,” he said.

Hundreds of people are believed to have been detained since the emergency was declared last week.

The Archbishop-elect of Cape Town, the Most Rev. Desmond Tutu, spoke at a service in Johannesburg’s Anglican cathedral, which ended with the multiracial congregation, right fists raised in the black power salute, singing the anthem, “God Bless Africa.”

During a passionate sermon, Bishop Tutu spoke out against violence and apartheid. Censorship barred reporters from quoting almost his entire speech. Journalists, faced with up to 10 years imprisonment for defying the restrictions, were unable to report any statements that might be “subversive or inciteful.” The Soweto uprising began with student protests against the use of Afrikaans in black schools.