Word: soweto
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...early as 6 a.m., the streets of Soweto were mobbed with mourners determined to bury their dead. Militant black youths roamed the sprawling township outside Johannesburg, enforcing a work stoppage that had been called to honor the 24 Sowetans felled a week earlier by police gunfire. Wielding sjamboks, or plastic whips, the young radicals chased commuters from bus stops and train stations and pelted moving vehicles with rocks. One bus was halted and burned on the spot. Security forces moved in rapidly, spraying the streets with tear gas. By 10 a.m., thousands of blacks had congregated outside the locked gates...
...violence in Soweto left blacks more embittered than ever. Black leaders maintained that the number of deaths was closer to 30 than the 20 the government claimed and called for the resignation of the township council. Said the Rev. Frank Chikane, a Sowetan civic leader: "We are appalled by this cold-blooded massacre of our people. This was one of the darkest days in our history." The South African Council of Churches criticized the Soweto councilors for their eviction policy, pointing out that the rent issue had become a "political time bomb" that could "explode in townships throughout South Africa...
Pressure had been mounting since June, when the majority of Soweto's legal residents joined the boycott. In July, vowing to expel the "incorrigibles," the town council began to issue eviction notices, but twice extended the deadline. Preparing for trouble, the comrades made door-to-door calls to warn residents that if they paid rent, their houses would be burned. Last week, when the council evicted four families, trouble broke out almost immediately...
...same day, another Soweto councilor, Siegfried Manthata, who heads a group dedicated to "crime control," fled with his family through his backyard and took refuge with neighbors after a mob stormed his house. The attackers hurled rocks through the windows, cut the phone line, doused the dwelling with gasoline and set it on fire...
...June, when the Pretoria government declared the national state of emergency, white officials predicted that the bloodshed that had wracked the country sporadically for almost two years would soon end. But last week's violence in Soweto appeared to demonstrate instead that the situation is taking a new and even more dangerous turn. It has deep roots in the townships where many of South Africa's 24 million blacks live, increasingly angry and frustrated not only at a repressive white government but at any of their neighbors who seem to tolerate...