Tutu made a target

Press, 19 February 1987, Page 8

Tutu made a target

NZPA-Reuter

Johannesburg

The South African police chief who crushed the 1976 black rebellion in Soweto, former Brigadier Theuns Swanepoel, has launched his political career with an extraordinary challenge to the black leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate,. Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Mr Swanepoel, dubbed The Beast in documents before the United Nations, has been adopted as a candidate in the whitesonly General Election on May 6, and launched an immediate attack on Archbishop Tutu. “I wish to say to Archbishop Tutu ... I have dealt with you before,” he said.

Tutu, winner of the Nobel

Peace Prize in 1984, was a resident of Soweto when Mr Swanepoel’s men opened fire on student demonstrators there on June 16, 1976. "I am not looking for trouble but if you want trouble pick yourself a few men and come along,” Mr Swanepoel said in his adoption speech.

Referring to the suppression of the 1976 uprising, he said: “The same thing that happened in the past will happen again. Only this time they will carry you (Tutu) out feet first.”

Mr Swanepoel, aged 59, is standing for the Rightwing extremist Conservative Party in the Johannesburg constituency of Westdene against the Foreign Minister, -rPik Botha. A;-

Mr Botha is regarded as one of the most liberal members of the ruling National Party. Mr Swanepoel shook his audience of about 100 supporters by alleging that the Government included communists, and declared that he was a believer in apartheid.

“If that makes me a racist, then I am racist”

Mr Swanepoel urged the Government to lift all constraints on the security forces in suppressing political violence, which has killed at least 2375 people in the last three years. Although the National Party is expected to be returned to power, political commentators say it faces a stiff election battle from the Conservative Party in many constituencies, especially in the Transvaal and Orange Free State. . :