Word: soweto
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Last week's violence in Soweto seemed virtually inevitable. Two days before the mourners gathered, authorities had announced restrictions clearly designed to derail township plans for a mass funeral for those who had died in the previous week's police crackdown on rent strikers. When outraged Sowetans defiantly ignored the ban, even sacred burial grounds were transformed into battlefields...
...moved in. New bursts of blinding gas forced the mourners to flee in all directions, for the moment leaving some of the coffins only half buried. The next day several of the remaining bodies were buried without incident. But the clash of wills between the police and many of Soweto's 2 million blacks is far from over...
...endanger public order. It was under this provision that Pretoria announced its ban on mass funerals. Although the ruling applies only to the province of Natal, lawyers in the Transvaal are now pondering whether they could win a similar judgment, which would permit future gatherings to be held in Soweto...
...complex media regulations. The government had earlier conceded that some prohibitions were invalid because the measures had not been published as required by law. As a result, reporters were able to provide detailed accounts when the bloody confrontation that left 24 dead erupted a fortnight ago in Soweto. Last week, as the township girded for further violence, Pretoria issued the most stringent press restrictions yet, this time properly spelling them out in the Government Gazette. Reporters were prohibited from coming "within sight" of any unrest, security action or restricted gathering. Last week's funeral was thus off limits, forcing journalists...
...pieced together from the various accounts, the latest showdown began taking shape on Wednesday, just 24 hours after the government had imposed new restrictions on political gatherings. Police went from house to house in Soweto, displaying the text of the new orders: no mass funerals, no outdoor ceremonies, no flags or slogans, no gatherings of more than 200 mourners. The police asked the families of the dead to sign a paper agreeing to these rules. The families refused. Police then went to the area's mortuaries and warned undertakers not to release any bodies for burial without official permission. When...