Mandela’s Wife Defies Ban to Talk at Funeral

Black nationalist leader Winnie Mandela on Tuesday boldly defied the South African government’s orders banning her from all political activities to tell mourners at a funeral for 12 people killed in an anti-government protest, “The blood of our heroes will be avenged.

“The day is not far when we shall lead you to freedom,” declared Mandela, the wife of imprisoned African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela and an increasingly important black figure in her own right.

Her remarks came amid chants of “Amandla ngawetu!-- Power to the people!” with the black, green and gold flag of the outlawed African National Congress held high in the crowd.

“We are here today as testimony to the failure of this government to rule our country and to the fact that the solution to this country’s problems lies in these black hands,” she said. “This is our country!”

Rare Appearance

Her appearance at the funeral, which she said was the first time she has addressed such a public rally in 25 years because of government restrictions on her, not only showed a greater political daring on her part but also a growing determination by blacks to confront the government.

Speakers at the daylong funeral, attended by about 30,000, denounced the government and the police action two weeks ago in which the 12 people buried Tuesday and three others had died. They also called for greater organization and concerted actions, such as consumer boycotts and general strikes, to overturn the country’s apartheid system.

“We must not just bury our dead and again vow that they will not have died in vain,” Father Smangaliso Mkhatshwa, general secretary of the South African Catholic Bishops Conference, told the mourners. “But we must act together to end apartheid, to bring down this government. . . . The time for words and perhaps even for prayers has passed, and the time for action has come.”

The 15 victims died when police opened fire on a Nov. 21 protest march of about 50,000 gathered outside government offices in Mamelodi, about 10 miles from central Pretoria, to demand the withdrawal of troops and riot police from the township, as well as a reduction in rents and settlement of other grievances. The incident was one of the bloodiest in more than 15 months of sustained racial strife, in which more than 950 people have died.

Police, justifying their use of buckshot against the huge crowd, have described the marchers, mostly women, as “particularly violent mobs.”

Those buried Tuesday included six women, one of whom was 69 and another 65; five men, mostly middle-aged, and 2-month-old Trocia Ndlovu. The infant died after inhaling the fumes from a police tear-gas grenade shot into her home.

The Rev. Nico Smith, president of the Pretoria Council of Churches and a white minister who serves a black Dutch Reformed parish in Mamelodi, said all South Africa has cause to mourn the deaths in Mamelodi “because life has become cheap in our country.”

The Mamelodi incident brought the country’s racial unrest to Pretoria, the capital, which had not been touched by the unrest to the extent that many other major cities have, and most observers saw it as evidence of South Africa’s deepening crisis.

Botha Lifts Some Curbs

Nonetheless, South African President Pieter W. Botha asserted Tuesday that the government’s tough measures against the unrest are succeeding in restoring law and order here and that “the revolutionary climate . . . among people in South Africa is fast losing momentum.”

In a statement lifting the 19-week-old state of emergency in eight magisterial districts, Botha asserted that the government is now defeating those “elements that are ideologically opposed to orderly reform and that went out of their way this year to drive communities in South Africa toward a violent confrontation with each other.”

He gave no indication, however, when the state of emergency, which gives virtual martial law powers to the police and army in affected areas, would be ended in the 30 other districts, which include Johannesburg, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and a large portion of eastern Cape province. Pretoria and its black townships are not among the districts under emergency rule.

The eight districts where the curbs were ended are mostly in rural areas of Cape and Transvaal provinces where little unrest has been reported in recent months. In October, Botha lifted the state of emergency in six other rural districts--but then imposed it on Cape Town and the surrounding area a few days later.

Four more deaths were reported Tuesday in incidents around the country. A black man was shot and killed by police near Knysna in southern Cape province after a group attacked a police patrol, according to police headquarters in Pretoria, and another man was found dead in his burned-out home in New Brighton, a black township outside Port Elizabeth.

At Tumahole, near Parys in the Orange Free State, a 19-year-old youth leader died after being beaten over the weekend, and in Cape Town, a 45-year-old Colored construction worker died from injuries suffered Friday when the truck in which he was riding was stoned.

More than 200 black women marched on a police station outside Cape Town on Tuesday after a 1,000-man police and military task force sealed portions of Guguletu, one of the city’s black townships, and arrested 140 men, mostly on criminal suspicion. Tensions were eased when all but 33 of the men were released.

Peacefulness the Objective

The Mamelodi funeral was one of the largest in recent months, and it remained peaceful from beginning to end as blacks sought to demonstrate that the police, rather than black youths, are responsible for the violence that often follows burials of unrest victims.

It was attended not only by Mamelodi residents but by members of the liberal white opposition Progressive Federal Party, which has called for a judicial inquiry into the victims’ death; by leading white clergymen, and by diplomats from 11 countries. The diplomats included a representative from the United States, which rarely sends a representative to funerals of victims of such unrest.

“We are here to show sympathy with those people of our community who have suffered a loss,” Timothy M. Carney, the American Embassy’s political counselor, said. “Most embassies have friends here in Mamelodi, and most have employees who live here. However, another reason the United States is here is to express our support for the principle of peaceful protest. We have stated a number of times in the past year that we are committed to the principles of peaceful process and due process of law.”

The Progressive Federal Party’s Helen Suzman, a veteran opponent of apartheid and the longest serving member of Parliament, told mourners, “The killing must stop.”

The government must lift the state of emergency, imposed July 21, release political detainees and remove the army and riot police from the country’s black townships, she said, if peace is to be restored and progress made toward solving the country’s problems.

Rite at Soccer Stadium

Winnie Mandela arrived unexpectedly during the burial of the victims and then went to the local soccer stadium, where the funeral service was being held.

Since 1977, she has been “banned”--South Africa’s unique system of dealing with government opponents, under which she has been exiled to Brandfort, a small town in the Orange Free State, forbidden to leave without police permission, and even there prohibited from being with more than one person at a time.

Since August, however, she has repeatedly defied those orders, risking long prison terms, and moved to fill a vacuum in the country’s black political leadership caused by the arrest and detention of many other leaders.

Her activities confront the government with the difficult choice of arresting her, putting her on trial, insisting that she return to Brandfort, or allowing her to build up an already substantial following.

“I have come here to weep with you,” she said as a police helicopter circled overhead. “I have come to wipe up the blood of our children with you.”