Word: soweto
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...says to call him "Che Guevara." He lives in Zola, one of the ghetto districts that make up the vast black township of Soweto, outside Johannesburg. At 22 he is a hardened veteran of the struggle against apartheid. He has killed "enemies of the people" and is prepared to kill again...
...youth rebellion began on June 16, 1976, when the schoolchildren of Soweto, seething over the inferior instruction known as Bantu education, rose up in protest against the state's edict that their lessons must be learned in Afrikaans, the language of the ruling whites. The initial battles left more than 400 dead, but the uprising was never completely quelled. In 1984 the comrades of the still simmering townships rebelled again, setting off a series of violent protests that killed more than 2,000 over the next two years and prompted the government to impose a state of emergency. The turmoil...
Black crime is soaring. Poverty has removed the stigma from stealing, and young people are no longer afraid of the police. Blacks have invented a name for the new youthful criminals: they are the comtsotsis, gangsters masquerading as political activists. In Soweto, which has 3 million residents, an epidemic of car thefts and armed holdups has left many people cowering in their homes after sunset. The township ranks among the murder capitals of the world: in 1989 Soweto reported 1,383 killings, compared with 1,900 in New York City and 434 in Washington...
...burglary. They use Soviet-made AK-47 assault rifles to carry out bank robberies and payroll heists. Much of the crime is vicious. A bunch of street toughs recently murdered an elderly New Zealand tourist and stole his wristwatch after he made a wrong turn and wound up in Soweto after dark. "This is because black people are suffering," a black burglar told a white Johannesburg man as he robbed his house and raped a woman friend...
...province of Natal alone, more than 4,000 people have died since clashes erupted in 1986 between followers of the A.N.C. and the Zulu- based Inkatha movement, headed by Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi. Instead of inspiring a new era of peace, Mandela's return has seen the fighting spread to Soweto and other townships encircling Johannesburg. In 1990 nearly 3,500 were killed in black communal violence, the worst year's toll in modern South African history...