Word: biko
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There is also pressure on James Kruger to resign as South Africa's powerful Minister of Justice, Police and Prisons. Kruger triggered an international furor by his seemingly casual handling of the death of the 30-year-old black leader Stephen Biko in a Pretoria jail (TIME, Sept. 26). The minister first strongly implied that Biko, who was detained for questioning under South Africa's tough internal security laws, had died as a result of a hunger strike. An inquest, expected to be held later this month, will inquire into the suspicious circumstances of the death. Kruger further...
...deceptively cherubic-looking man whose rosy face would seem more appropriate to a Dutch baker than a gruff police chief, Kruger last week extensively discussed details of the Biko case for the first time. Showing no outward emotion, the 59-year-old official patiently fielded questions in his wood-paneled Pretoria office during an interview with TIME Johannesburg Bureau Chief William McWhirter. Excerpts from their talk...
...What happened to Biko before he died...
...requested] medical advice as to whether he could travel and they said he could. [In Pretoria], he was put in a prison cell because that was the warrant and they immediately tried to get hold of a doctor. But the soonest they could reach him was early afternoon, so Biko was left [in prison] and treated there; that evening he died. I have never said that he died of hunger; he had definitely been on a hunger strike. He refused to eat. There is also a medical history there...
...growing furor over the circumstances of Biko's death will inevitably focus attention in the coming campaign on the government's racial policies. Even more crucial, perhaps, it may prove to be a final showdown in the 200-year-old cultural and political war between South Africans of English descent and the Dutch-descended Afrikaners. The Afrikaners' ability and willingness to adapt, if only to survive, are yet to be tested. But knowledgeable observers believe that a convincing electoral victory would allow Vorster to relax the apartheid laws and work toward peaceful settlements in Namibia and Rhodesia...