Word: apartheid
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Blackburn's and Bishop's deaths tragically concluded a particularly turbulent year for South Africa. In all, some 850 Honor guard at Molly Blackburn's funeral people, most of them black, were killed in violence generated by unrest related to the struggle to end apartheid (see chart). Unhappily, 1986 got off to an equally bloody start. On Jan. 1 alone, there were 16 reported deaths. All of the victims were nonwhites and all of the incidents were fueled by racial conflicts...
After months of halting, halfhearted gestures toward racial reform, South Africa last week finally took a step that may significantly alter its detested system of apartheid. The government announced proposals to abolish the pass laws, a complex web of 34 regulations and proclamations that have severely restricted the ability of blacks to move freely within the country. The laws, said an official white paper announcing the reform, are a "relic of the past" and will be replaced by a non-discriminatory program of "planned, positive urbanization." Declared State President P.W. Botha: "Today we have arrived at the emancipation from guardianship...
...Washington, the Reagan Administration hailed the proposed reforms as a "major milestone on the road away from apartheid." But public reaction inside South Africa was mixed. Business groups and other moderates cheered the news. The government's actions, said John Kane-Berman, director of the antiapartheid South African Institute of Race Relations, rank along with the legalization of black trade unions in 1979 as "the most important reform in South Africa since World War II." Many black activists, on the other hand, viewed the measure--welcome as it is--as too little, too late. "Apartheid cannot be reformed," says Patrick...
...sweeping decision to repeal the patchwork of influx laws comes after the country has endured 20 months of violent protest against apartheid in which nearly 1,500 people, most of them black, have been killed. Had the reform come earlier, it might have been hailed more widely as an attempt at peacefully easing the country's racial difficulties. Indeed, the proposed changes fall far short of now clamorous black demands for full political representation. Nor do they threaten the legally enshrined principles of racial segregation, which include separate schools and residential areas for different racial groups. All this prompted some...
...seems unlikely, however, that the proposed reforms will do much to quell the seething discontent in the country's black townships. Indeed, even as Botha delivered his brotherhood message last week, there were yet more tragic indications that the wounds inflicted by apartheid will be difficult to heal. During one 24-hour period, 60 homes were fire-bombed and 30 private cars and police vehicles were damaged as police tried to control a clash between militant youths and vigilante squads in the township of Alexandra, near Johannesburg. --By Janice C. Simpson. Reported by Bruce W. Nelan/Johannesburg