Thousands of youths in racial clash

Press, 28 December 1988, Page 8

Thousands of youths in racial clash

NZPA-AP Peking Thousands of Chinese youths chanting “kill the black ghosts” surrounded a train station yesterday where more than 130 African students were holed up after three days of racial clashes, American onlookers said. The Americans — students in the central China city of Nanking —- also reported another attack by stone-throwing Chinese on a foreign student dormitory.

The Xinhua news agency said officials later persuaded the Africans to leave the train station and go back to their Hehai university dormitories.

A Chinese onlooker, however, said the police forced the students out of the station, carrying some of them. He said four American students with the Africans were also forced on to buses and taken away. The Chinese mob of about 5000 remained outside the station, according to the onlookers, who spoke on condition of anonymity in telephone interviews.

A Xinhua report said two Africans and 11 Chinese employees of Hehai university were hurt in the clashes, including one Chinese with a serious head injury.

Officials denied a Chinese student’s allegation that one of their number died in violence on Saturday. About 135 African students had holed up in the foreigners’ lounge of the train station. Train traffic apparently continued normally. The Africans had fled their campus and planned to board a train for Peking to complain at their embassies after Chinese students bombarded their dormitories with bottles and stones on Saturday and Sunday.

Violent clashes between Chinese and African students have been reported in several Chinese cities in recent years. The Africans say they are the targets of racism, a charge Chinese officials deny. The fighting in Nanking began during a Christmas Eve school dance, Xinhua reported. Two African students escorting Chinese women to the dance refused to register the women’s names at the campus gate, as is customary, the news agency said. Other Africans forced open the gate and attacked school workers, teachers and students with sticks, bottles and stones.