Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 26, 1994 TAG: 9404260135
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: GERMISTON, SOUTH AFRICA LENGTH: Medium
The attacks, the most recent of more than a dozen that have killed 21 and injured almost 200 in the past two days, appeared to be part of a campaign by white extremists to discourage South Africans from voting in elections, which will bring blacks into government for the first time.
Political leaders, seeking to reassure worried South Africans, announced Monday the biggest peacetime military call-up in the country's history to ensure that the 9,000 polling stations will be safe for the elections Wednesday and Thursday.
Besides army troops, 100,000 police officers, twice the number originally planned, will guard polling booths, beginning today.
``A group of desperate people, small handfuls of radicals, have declared war on the rest of this society,'' said President Frederik W. de Klerk. ``We will not rest until they have been tracked down, convicted and punished, as they deserve.
``Our contingency plans for the elections are in place,'' he added. ``While incidents such as these obviously constitute a risk, I want to assure the public that we will do our best to assure they can vote safely.''
It was difficult to tell how many of the expected 20 million voters would be deterred from casting ballots by the resurgence of terrorist attacks, especially if more innocent people are killed in the next few days. But many South Africans said the attacks, part of the biggest bombing campaign since the African National Congress was waging guerrilla war on the white-minority government, have made them more determined to make the elections a success.
Johann Kriegler, head of the Independent Electoral Commission, promised Monday that the elections would go ahead, ``bombs or no bombs.'' The voting begins today, with elderly and disabled South Africans casting ballots at 500 special polling stations. The entire country goes to the polls Wednesday and Thursday.
Although Kriegler said Monday's killings were tragic, he added: ``We have come light years in four years, and we will not be deterred by minor incidents.''
Right-wing leaders insisted Monday that their organizations were not responsible for the bombings. But a caller to an Afrikaans-language newspaper late Monday claimed his right-wing group was responsible for the Germiston blast and warned that it ``would be a picnic compared with what is to come.''
Political analysts said all the attacks carried the signature of militant rightists, who have vowed to boycott the election with their demands for an autonomous homeland for the Afrikaner descendants of the first white settlers.
The bomb in Germiston, a white industrial city about 10 miles southeast of Johannesburg, was planted in a trailer parked amid taxi vans near downtown. It exploded at 8:45 a.m. local time Monday, shattering windows in a four-block-square area, tossing parts of cars and bodies onto roofs of nearby buildings and destroying 10 mini-bus taxis. A grocery store building also was destroyed and the bomb left a crater 2 yards deep in the pavement.
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Meanwhile, in Cape Town, the white-dominated Parliament met for the last time Monday to amend the constitution to recognize the Zulu monarchy and allow Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi's Inkatha Freedom Party to participate in the voting. Buthelezi had called off his election boycott last week. His decision has eased tensions in Natal Province, where supporters of Buthelezi and Mandela have been battling for a decade, leaving thousands dead.
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB