European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - August 11, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Flames of vengeance in Soweto by Joseph Albright Cox news service South Africa state of emergency magisterial districts where police and soldiers can make arrests without conduct random searches and hold prisoners incommunicado and impose curfews and censorship go Jago Tribune Mao source Chicago Tribune the acrid smell of smoking upholstery still Hung outside the burned out House of a Black councilman in Soweto who had refused Community pressure to the previous according to a crowd of unarmed Black mostly stormed up Letsa Tsi Street to surround the councilman modest fou room they had just come from Avalon where they buried three victims of South Africa yearlong civil struggle Ephraim Samson and Jerry and in Defiance of the South african state of these Young activists were going to exact vengeance against someone they took As a Collaborator of a single Black policeman guarding the councilman House tried to scare off the firing at least one warning shot into the people on the Street screamed the instead of firing on the fled Over a Back someone then rushed into the councilman garage and moved his Ford Sedan out into the before flames were gutting the councilman Small living room and with it the two wardrobes of clothes stored along one the Ford was left in flames the Nelson had left South Africa on a Yemc arranged trip to the United a neighbor the Day after the torching was sunny and peaceful in Soweto a dormitory suburb of million Blacks that lies 15 minutes by superhighway from the Glass towers of the Johannesburg for those Blacks who have proper identity it was a Day to go to kick a soccer Ball in the Roll clean and for a reporter visiting it was a Day to gauge the contradictory currents now Rushing throughout the Black Urban townships that surround White South Africa a Black 29 and told How he was shot in the Arm and later arrested during an upheaval eight years that was during the big Soweto riots Between 1976 and 1980 in which the killed numbered in the he said Security men questioning him kicked him in the put electrodes on his ear and beat him until he pretended to be he said he spent two years in solitary confinement before he was released without this he he has decided to stay out of the if i do nobody must know about he but he sees no pathway to Black rights except the Only solution to our problems is the barrel of a he an elementary schoolteacher in her 50s said her belief in god made her deplore the South african authorities Are trying to upgrade Soweto she but there is still a great Gap Between us and the White we Are not supplied with a single teaching she we make them out of shoe when Soweto students reach High she the cumulative effects of bad primary education take their we have so Many she the children become so and then they Boycott classes and continue to another schoolteacher said he sees some benefits from state president Bot has decision to impose a state of now the buses can get through so our people can get to he the kids Are getting to he said that when students talk about boycotting he Doest try to stand in their we have to be afraid that they will attack our houses and so he Soweto has More of an upwardly Mobile Middle class than most other Black according to the White run financial mail even typical Sowe tans live in monotonously similar Brick houses with three or four Small there is an upscale Section of nicknamed where perhaps 600 Middle class Black professional families live in what looks like a Middle income american and then there is the Fred Clark squatters where the underclass look How we Are said a 41yearold woman How can the children study with nine people in one room her husband and seven children have been living in a corrugated Metal Shack measuring 9 by 12 feet since june they rent it for a month about what Many renters of three room Brick houses she says she has tried unsuccessfully to rent one of the Brick but sees no Hope for she violence is not the the government must help never mind she we Are asking the government for permission to extend this to make this two then my children can sleep in another Back among the Brick Cracker boxes of Soweto a 45yearold bookkeeper said Soweto is very tense even though there Hast been much violence it might erupt tomorrow he he said he supports morally the Young people who Are trying to confront the but he personally Doest want to go to the Box his word for we lie he we try to defuse the the time for negotiations has said an 18 year old the White they keep giving us the seven of his friends have been arrested As part of the governments state of emergency he was arrested himself at a demonstration shortly before the emergency then released in a few now he half expects to be arrested they know our they know even our he asked who he thinks can help he named the underground organization african National which was banned by White authorities seven years before he was we think the Anc will free he if the Anc keeps on we will be a photo angry Young South african during recent riots after failing to crush Black unrest with treason trials and the White government of South Africa is trying to Deal a body blow to the opposition by detaining hundreds of grassroots but apartheid foes ask even if the recently imposed state of emergency succeeds in restoring temporary could it last without a Clear sign the whit9 minority is willing to share Power with the protesting Black August 1985 the stars and stripes Page 13