Racial Riots in Natal Under Inquiry

Grey River Argus, 19 February 1949, Page 8

Racial Riots in Natal Under Inquiry

DURBAN, February 17. European incitement had been the cause of the trouble, said Dr G. .S. Lowen, at the opening of the inquiry into the recent riots in Durban. Dr Lowen is appearing jointly for the South African Indian Congress and the African National Congress. Other causes of the riots, he alledged, were slum conditions, speeches by Government Ministers, racial antagonism, hostility and hatred propagated by previous and present South African Governments.

The riots, in which 120 Africans and Indians died, were not the result of antagonism between the two sides. “There may be grievances between the Africans and the Indians, but we intend to disprove that there was a movement afoot by the Africans as a whole against the Indians as a whole. We will prove that in many instances Africans sacrificed their lives for Indians”. Dr Lowen said he would prove that during the riots a section of the European community either passively encouraged or actively incited the Africans to violence. He would test the correctness of the belief that if the authorities had acted quickly the riots would have been prevented. Dr Lowen said he would also prove that, first, an attack on an African youth was not the cause of the riots; secondly, the alleged over-charging of certain Africans by certain Indians was not the cause; thirdly, whatever over-charging took place “was not worse than any over-charg-ing by European traders, against whom the Africans did not riot and whose property was undamaged”. Dr Lowen said the root causes of the riots could only be brought out by cross-examination, and he appealed to the Inquiry Commission to permit this. The chairman, Mr Justice F. P. van den Heever, refused this request. He then granted an adjournment until to-morrow to enable Dr Lowen to consult his clients.