Black Spots

Dead for a principle

Nestled in a fertile valley 200 miles east of Johannesburg, the village of Driefontein is a picture of rural contentment. Flower beds front its comfortable houses, cattle browse in lush pastures, and fruit trees abound. But Driefontein is different: it is a so-called "black spot," an area of black settlement surrounded mainly by white farmers. For several years, in keeping with South Africa's policy of apartheid, the government has tried to persuade the 7,000 black farmers of Driefontein to move to black "homelands" in the desolate Kangwane and Kwazulu regions. The blacks have bitterly resisted the move, and last week the conflict turned bloody.

Driefontein's resistance to the draconian program had an unlikely leader in Saul Mkhize, 48, a quiet, slender accountant. He owned the land that his grandfather had settled in 1912, when 300 black families pooled their resources to purchase a 6,000-acre tract. But in 1981 the government announced that it needed all the land in Driefontein to build a dam. To show that they were serious, officials arrived to paint numbers on the heart-shaped gravestones in the Driefontein cemetery in preparation for moving the remains. Mkhize and his neighbors protested vigorously, insisting that they owned the land and would not leave.

The conflict came to a head when Mkhize called a public meeting in the yard of Driefontein's school buildings to discuss the issue. Holding a bullhorn, Mkhize delayed his introductory speech to the 300 people present, waiting for more to arrive. Suddenly, a police van roared into the schoolyard and screeched to a halt. Flanked by a black officer, Police Constable J.A. Nienaber, a white, declared that the gathering was illegal. When no one moved, he threw a tear-gas canister into the crowd and then struck Mkhize in the face. The angry crowd surged toward the police, jostling them. Nienaber retreated to his van and pulled out of the yard. Inexplicably, he then jumped from the van with a shotgun and declared he would shoot. As the crowd dispersed, Nienaber fired, shooting Mkhize fatally in the chest. The police claimed that Nienaber acted in self-defense, but public outrage over the killing has swept South Africa. Says Civil Rights Activist Josie Adler: "Saul was not a radical. He just wanted to keep his land."

Driefontein is a microcosm of the problems caused by the country's attempt to segregate blacks and whites. Drafted in 1959, South Africa's program of "separate development" calls for gradually ejecting the blacks from their communities and transferring their citizenship to various remote homelands. The aim is to ensure that South Africa's 5 million whites artificially become the majority in the country. The plan will also put an end to arguments for giving the country's 21 million blacks representation in Parliament, a right that they have always been denied under South Africa's apartheid laws. As former Minister of Native Affairs Connie Mulder explained, "There will not be one black with South African citizenship. There will no longer be a moral obligation on this [white] Parliament to accommodate these people politically."

The Driefontein incident occurred just as the government was preparing to confront another emotional race question. South Africa's 850,000 Indians and 2.6 million "colored," or citizens of mixed race, have always received only slightly better treatment than blacks. But the authorities are concerned that the Indians and colored are becoming angrier because, like blacks, they are excluded from any role in government. Last year, to forestall a possible violent explosion, Prime Minister P.W. Botha proposed a modest power-sharing plan that would grant limited parliamentary representation to Indians and colored, while firmly retaining legislative control in white hands.

Blacks have criticized the plan for excluding them, while the far right has attacked it as a ploy to dilute white domination. In a move to mollify conservatives, Botha unexpectedly announced that he would call a whites-only referendum on the proposal, most likely this fall. In return, he hopes to win right-wing support in three crucial by-elections this May. For hard-liners worried about keeping blacks in their place, Botha's concession and the police's tough stand in Driefontein were no doubt both reassuring signals. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.