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921130
FT 30 NOV 92 / S African golf club attack leaves 4 dead
By PATTI WALDMEIR and REUTER
JOHANNESBURG, MAMELODI, TRANSVAAL
BLACK gunmen hurling hand grenades killed four whites and injured 17 other
people attending a South African wine-tasting party at the weekend, the
first significant incident of racial terrorism against whites since
negotiations began to end apartheid.
A government spokesman said South Africa was 'shocked and horrified' by the
attack, which took place at a golf club in the white Cape Province
settlement of King William's Town, as well as by other incidents in which 21
more people were killed at the weekend.
The golf club attack will deepen the mood of gloom which has set in among
whites as constitutional negotiations have faltered, and could provoke a
violent backlash from right-wing whites who oppose negotiations. Police
clearly fear such a backlash, and yesterday called for 'maximum restraint'
from the public.
Police have offered a R50,000 (Pounds 11,000) reward for information leading
to arrests in the golf club incident, much more than is normal for incidents
involving black victims.
The government official said the King William's Town attack, the murder of
four members of a white family in a robbery, and the deaths of 14 blacks in
other violence, introduced 'a harsh and discordant note' after recent
tentative signs of progress in negotiations. The African National Congress
(ANC) and the government are to meet later this week for the first formal
constitutional talks to be held for over six months.
Local ANC officials condemned the golf club attack, describing it as an
attempt by unidentified forces to foment violence in the region, which
includes the volatile black homeland of Ciskei.
Police said five attackers hurled grenades into the club's bar and dining
areas and started firing rounds with South African R-4 or R-5 automatic
rifles into guests, killing two white couples and wounding 17 people, mostly
whites.
'The scene was one of devastation. . .absolute carnage,' said Mr Ray Radue,
a member of parliament for the ruling National party who attended the
function, held at the town's multi-racial golf club. Mr Nelson Mandela, the
ANC president, yesterday assured South Africa's white soldiers, policemen
and civil servants they would not be cast aside by a new non-racial
democratic government, Reuter adds from Mamelodi, Transvaal.
'No-one will be thrown into the street, existing contracts will be
respected,' he said.
In the same speech he acknowledged that ANC guerrillas were being given
military training in Asian and western countries. He said he had kept the
government fully informed.
The Financial Times
London Page 6