4 Whites Killed as Blacks Attack S. African Club

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa —  In an attack that shocked white South Africans, five black men armed with rifles and hand grenades burst into a crowded country club dining room over the weekend, killing four whites and injuring 17 other people.

The Saturday night killings at the King William’s Town Golf Club, in the southeastern part of the country, was the first attack of its kind by blacks against whites in a public place. It symbolized the worst fears of the privileged white minority, which is in the midst of negotiations to end apartheid and relinquish power in South Africa.

The attack, following the deaths of thousands of blacks in terrorist incidents over the past two years, also offered the strongest evidence yet that unknown, well-armed forces opposed to negotiations continue to operate within the country.

Police and witnesses said that about 60 mostly white diners were in the dining room attending a function organized by the local wine-tasting club when the attackers arrived. Two white couples were killed instantly when the men sprayed the room with gunfire. Fifteen white diners and two black waitresses were injured, some seriously, by gunfire, shrapnel and flying glass.

The attackers, apparently armed with South African-made rifles, also used three hand grenades, which exploded in the dining room, the bar and in a shed outside the clubhouse, police said. The men escaped by car.

Police offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the attackers. And the incident was sharply criticized by South Africa’s political leaders, from President Frederik W. de Klerk’s government to Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress.

The ANC’s regional office in nearby East London condemned the attack, calling it “sinister and absurd.”

“The ANC is not responsible for the attack,” said Mcebisi Bata, the local ANC spokesman. “We do not know who did it or why.”

In a speech Sunday, Mandela urged left- and right-wing organizations in South Africa to join hands to get South Africa “out of the mess it’s in.”

Ray Radue, the ruling National Party’s member of Parliament for King William’s Town, who was in the club at the time of the attack, said that “it all happened in seconds.”

“It was a totally unprovoked act of terrorism against innocent people,” Radue said. “And it must be condemned in the strongest possible terms.”

A spokesman for De Klerk said the country was “shocked and horrified,” not only by the country club attack but also by three other incidents of violence over the weekend. On Friday night, eight blacks died in an attack at a rail station northeast of Johannesburg, a rural white family of four was killed in an apparent robbery south of Johannesburg and six blacks died in a hand grenade explosion in Sebokeng township, also south of Johannesburg.

“These incidents represent a harsh and discordant note after the hope that has recently arisen in the wake of progress with negotiations,” the government spokesman said. “They underline once again the urgency for all political leaders to nurture and strengthen this hope.”

Police identified two of the victims of the golf club attack as Ian MacDonald, 62, and his wife, Agnes, 56. Family members said the MacDonalds had moved to South Africa from Zimbabwe shortly after that African country won its independence from white-minority rule in 1980. MacDonald worked for the Ciskei homeland’s small-business development corporation. His wife was a nurse at a textile factory.

The golf club is only a few miles from the nominally independent black homeland of Ciskei, where troops opened fire on ANC protesters in September, killing 28 blacks. That massacre spawned a series of attacks on white and black Ciskei officials and apparent counterattacks on ANC leaders.