unitex@rubbs.fidonet.org (unitex) (09/17/89)
While white South Africa was monitoring voting results 22
black people were shot and killed in a night of terror in
the Western Cape.
This morning (Thursday September 7) a shocked Dr Allan
Boesak, leader of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches,
called on the entire Cabinet to resign in disgrace.
Referring to the newly-elected acting state president, Dr
Boesak told a press conference: "Mr F W de Klerk's seat sits
in a pool of blood that should determine his agenda. If he
does not move quickly none of what he says politically or
otherwise will have any meaning whatsoever."
According to the Mitchells Plain Crisis Committee, 11 people
were killed in their area, four died in Lavender Hill, two in
Valhalla Park, three in Steenberg, one in Khayelitsha, one
in Kleinvlei and one in Stellenbosch. One person was
seriously wounded.
Except for the last two areas the killings took place in the
part of the Peninsula known as the Cape Flats. The dead range
from a six-year-old child to a 65-year-old woman.
According to Archbishop Tutu, who also addressed the press
conference, this woman was killed when police fired a bullet
through the window of her home.
"She was not hit but she literally died of fright," said the
Archbishop.
Today preparations were underway for the funeral of one of
the victims, Sujeiman Martin (26) of Electra Crescent in
Mitchells Plain, the largest township on the Cape Flats.
According to eyewitnesses and a civil rights lawyer, Essa
Moosa, groups of vigilantes allegedly assisted by the police
were offloaded in the townships on Wednesday night when they
staged shooting attacks on residents.
One eyewitness claimed a 60-year-old woman's head was blown
off by a shotgun wielding man in plainclothes. Afterwards
the body was found separately, from the head, in the
streets.
The election night carnage happened hours after a South
African Police force lieutenant with 12 years' experience in
the force made an unprecedented attack on his colleagues.
Lieutenant Gregory Rockman (30) said that events he had
witnessed recently had made him ashamed to be a policeman.
Rockman contravened the police code of silence after he had
seen his colleagues break up a small placard demonstration
in the Mitchells Plain town centre.
He said a major in the riot squad had threatened to lock him
up under the state of emergency regulations when he tried to
stop the beatings and that he was afterwards summoned to the
office of the regional commissioner of police in the Western
Cape, Major-General Phillipus Fourie.
Lt Rockman said that after scattering the peaceful
demonstrators with sjamboks (quirts), the squad had
repeatedly charged and whipped people in the centre, injuring
an eight-month-pregnant woman in the process.
He said in an interview afterwards, "They were just hitting
people. They couldn't care if they were innocent bystanders
or not. They were running after them even when they were
fleeing, hitting them.
"It seemed to me that they were enjoying themselves, feasting
on the people."
When asked at the press conference yesterday whether the
reasonably good performance of the moderate Democratic Party
(DP) in the election was a small step in the right
direction, Archbishop Tutu answered:
"They (the white Parliament) are on the edge of a huge abyss
and a small step will mean that they will fall into that
abyss".
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* Origin: AlterNet, Node1 (Opus 1:163/113)
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Patt Haring | United Nations | FAX: 212-787-1726
patth@sci.ccny.cuny.edu | Information | BBS: 201-795-0733
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