S.A. Govt puts toll at 11

Press, 19 June 1986, Page 10

S.A. Govt puts toll at 11

NZPA-Reuter Johannesburg Black South Africans have gone back to work after the tenth anniversary of the Soweto riots, which, the Government said, was marked by 11 violent deaths but no mass unrest. Four West German citizens and a Dutch cameraman were expelled from the country. The Government confirmed for the first time that new restrictions had been placed on Winnie Mandela, wife of the jailed nationalist leader,Nelson Mandela. Cities returned to normal yesterday as blacks went back to work after a stayaway on June 16, an-

niversary of the riots that erupted in 1976. The Government’s Bureau for Information said 11 people died in political unrest on June 16, the highest daily toll since a nation-wide state of emergency was imposed on Thursday. A bureau spokesman said the day had passed without mass unrest and the 11 had died in "isolated incidents.” It has been impossible for journalists to verify the scope of any unrest since Pretoria imposed sweeping news media curbs since the emergency was declared. Reporters are forbidden to describe any security operation or to visit “un-

rest areas.” The independent Institute of Race Relations published grim new statistics on the death toll in political violence in South Africa. It said at least 1808 people, mostly black, had died between February, 1984, and the beginning of June this year. The Archbishop of Canterbury’s envoy, Terry Waite, arrived in South Africa on a fact-finding mission and was greeted by the Archbishop-elect of Cape Town, the Most Reverend Desmond Tutu. Bishop Tutu condemned the British Prime Minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher, saying her policy on South Africa was “a slap in our face.”