S.A. police use whips on poll eve

Press, 6 September 1989, Page 10

S.A. police use whips on poll eve

NZPA-Reuter Johannesburg Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu has accused the police of desecrating Cape Town Cathedral after they sealed it off in a night of pre-election violence.

Riot police used whips to chase people from the venue for a demonstration as anti-apartheid campaigners stepped up their protests against the exclusion of blacks from today’s vote. Bishop Tutu, who was briefly detained for the second time in a week, said he would reconsecrate St George’s Cathedral because of the way the police had behaved.

Onlookers said riot police had surrounded the cathedral and a neighbouring Methodist church in order to prevent anti-apartheid protesters from holding a rally. “It is true terrorism. Violence against unarmed civilians is the hallmark of terrorism ... we had security forces with guns entering a place of worship where you speak about peace and offer reverence to God,” Bishop Tutu told a midnight news conference. “(The police action) is desecration of our cathedral and of the other church. I am going to reconsecrate the building,” the Nobel peace prize laureate said after he had been released from police custody.

Earlier, truckloads of riot police wielding whips chased off passers-by an hour before the meeting was due to start at the Methodist church. The gathering had been prohibited under emergency laws, but a last-minute Supreme Court ruling overturned the ban. Anti-apartheid protest reaches its climax in the next two days to highlight the exclusion of the 25 million-strong black majority from South Africa’s Gen-

eral Election. Anti-apartheid protests erupted in many urban areas yesterday, with demonstrations in Soweto, and a student protest which was dispersed with water cannon and tear-gas in Durban. Today’s voting is for three houses of Parliament — the most powerful one for the country’s five million whites, and others representing the three million Coloureds (mixed race), and nearly one million Asians.

South Africa’s two biggest union federations, representing more than a million black workers, called on members to stay at home to protest against the poll, which is almost certain to return the National Party to power. In Johannesburg, N.P. supporters had to walk past a pavement protest as they arrived at the city hall for the Acting President’s final pre-election address. The protesters attempted to hand in a letter to Mr De Klerk, but dispersed peacefully when police ordered them to move on under terms of South Africa’s three-year-old state of emergency. “We are told to disperse from a meeting which claims to be open. This is’ the President who claims to stand for democracy,” said Jay Naidoo, the general secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions. Mr De Klerk, almost certain to be confirmed as head of State after the election, repeated the N.P. policy of opposing domination by any one group while emphasising that separate development of the races should continue.