Demonstrations South Africa

Two top officials of the Azanian People's Organization, a radical black consciousness group, were detained by South African security police Friday in a raid on the group's headquarters here. Nkosi Molala, the organization's president, and George Wauchope, its general secretary, were detained after a 90-minute search of the group's downtown offices.

Thousands of South African men, horrified by an apparent surge in rapes of baby girls, joined women and children in a protest march in Cape Town on Sunday. This crime-weary nation was still reeling from the alleged rape of a 9-month-old girl by six men earlier this month when it was shocked by reports this weekend of the rape of an 8-month-old girl. Sunday's march was to launch a campaign backed by the government to raise awareness of abuse of women and children.

More than 1 million blacks boycotted work Wednesday, shutting down major cities on the anniversary of the 1976 student uprising against apartheid. Many businesses either closed or tried to make do with a skeleton staff of white workers, particularly in the larger cities of Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban.

The last of more than 2,000 squatters left a barren patch of land outside Johannesburg on Friday after authorities demolished all but one of their makeshift shacks. A private security firm, backed by hundreds of armed police, fanned out across the former squatter camp for a second day, tearing down the dwellings. As work crews approached the last shack, belonging to 83-year-old Puleng Elisa Lidimo, angry squatters surrounded the dwelling and vowed to save it.

Johannesburg's city council voted to end all race segregation in buses, swimming pools and other urban facilities, officials said Wednesday. The management committee of the country's biggest city, dominated by the ruling white National Party, decided Tuesday night to open recreational facilities immediately to black people, deputy chairman Marietta Marx said.

President Frederik W. de Klerk, launching an unprecedented campaign to woo nonwhite voters to his party, was driven off a podium in this township Saturday by protesters who hurled gravel at him and yanked the plug on his sound system. "We will not be silenced by these threats," De Klerk vowed to cheers before his speech was cut short by the hecklers. "We bring a message of hope, of prosperity, of a place in the sun for all South Africans."

The stabbing death this week of a popular, 26-year-old Fulbright scholar by a band of angry black youths has served to unify disparate groups of blacks and whites in a powerful way, prompting new calls for an end to street violence. Acting President Pik Botha asked South African leaders Friday to join him in seeking peace, while leaders of the African National Congress offered their help to police in tracking down the killers of Amy Elizabeth Biehl of Newport Beach.

Thousands of South African men, horrified by an apparent surge in rapes of baby girls, joined women and children in a protest march in Cape Town on Sunday. This crime-weary nation was still reeling from the alleged rape of a 9-month-old girl by six men earlier this month when it was shocked by reports this weekend of the rape of an 8-month-old girl. Sunday's march was to launch a campaign backed by the government to raise awareness of abuse of women and children.

The last of more than 2,000 squatters left a barren patch of land outside Johannesburg on Friday after authorities demolished all but one of their makeshift shacks. A private security firm, backed by hundreds of armed police, fanned out across the former squatter camp for a second day, tearing down the dwellings. As work crews approached the last shack, belonging to 83-year-old Puleng Elisa Lidimo, angry squatters surrounded the dwelling and vowed to save it.

After one of the bloodiest weeks in this country's recent history, the military deployed up to 850 more combat troops Wednesday to violence-scarred Zulu townships of Natal province to enforce a state of emergency, which has so far failed to curb bitter factional fighting. The reinforcements, drawn from infantry and light artillery reserve units in Natal, bring the total force here to about 2,000 troops.

The global drug industry took South Africa's government to court in a landmark challenge condemned by several thousand AIDS activists parading through Pretoria with posters saying "Lives before profits." The hearing at the Pretoria High Court is seen as a test of the ability of the richest drug firms to protect billion-dollar patent rights against a government looking for an affordable way to fight the AIDS epidemic sweeping the African continent.

Six South African police officers arrested for allegedly setting dogs on three black men in a videotaped 1998 attack were granted bail. Magistrate Alan Cohan, who set bail at $260 each, said prosecutors had not proven that the officers' lives would be in danger if they received bail or that there would be public violence if they were released. He ordered the accused not to interfere with any of the witnesses in the case.

At first glance, the new government of President Thabo Mbeki looks like a workers' paradise. Six Cabinet members belong to the Central Committee of the South African Communist Party. At least two others are Communist Party members. The premier of Gauteng, the country's richest and most powerful province, was until recently leader of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, a partner with the Communists and the African National Congress in the country's ruling alliance.

Three people were killed and 14 wounded--some by stray gunfire--during a Zulu nationalist march held to commemorate the deaths of more than 50 people at a 1994 protest before the nation's first all-race elections. Tribal leaders presided Wednesday over 12,000 Zulus who came from township hostels and swarmed Johannesburg's streets. Violence erupted among some of the marchers traveling to Johannesburg.

It seemed a routine traffic violation when police Lance Sgt. Kobus Esterhuizen pulled over a white Toyota that had run a red light near Pretoria early Wednesday. But the driver knocked the police officer to the ground with his door, then shot him to death with a 9-millimeter pistol, police said. Other officers then killed the driver. It was a tragic, but sadly typical, start to a day that was anything but typical here.

One man beat a makeshift metal drum and a few women clanged soda cans, but most of the 40 or so protesters sang as they marched in a gray drizzle at the University of the Witwatersrand. Except for the noise, the demonstrators Thursday did little to disrupt one of South Africa's most prestigious universities. But they were a vivid reminder that the peaceful political revolution that accompanied last April's democratic elections has yet to recast some of society's most valuable institutions.

Midway through a week of national protest in South Africa, Nelson Mandela leads his African National Congress supporters onto the streets of Pretoria Wednesday for a march on the Union Buildings, the seat of government. The march, one of dozens planned countrywide Wednesday through Friday, follows a two-day national strike scheduled to end today.

Protests against South Africa's white government continued, but President F. W. de Klerk and ANC leader Nelson Mandela indicated that black-white negotiations could resume soon. The scattered demonstrations were much smaller than three previous days of strikes and mass rallies called by the African National Congress and its allies to try to hasten the end of white minority rule.

Armed with clubs and leashed dogs, white protesters tried to stop black students from attending a high school in their neighborhood Wednesday but were pushed back by riot police. It was the first major confrontation over South Africa's new education policy, which allows black students to attend school with white students as well as use any underutilized schools in white areas.

The three young men convicted of murdering scholar Amy Biehl of Newport Beach have embarked on a hunger strike to demand political amnesty, state radio said Tuesday. Mongezi Manqina, 22, Mzikhona Nofemela, 19, and Vusumzi Ntamo, 23, were each sentenced Oct. 26 to 18 years in prison. Judge Gerald Friedman said they killed Biehl simply because she was white.