Word: township
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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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...
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...
...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 to rely on word...
...believed to have claimed as many as three lives, and a woman chased by sjambok-swinging youths fell beneath a moving train and was killed. One unconfirmed report said three youths were shot by four men whose car they had tried to force from the highway leading from the township. The unrest forced most people to abide by the work stoppage. In Soweto, road traffic halted and shops remained closed. The Labor Monitoring Group, an independent agency in Johannesburg, reported that 72% of Sowetans who work in manufacturing and 85% employed in the retail sector did not show...
...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...