World Notes

The autopsy report was clear: Andries Raditsela, 29, died of a brain ) hemorrhage "consistent with a blow or a fall." What the report did not say was that Raditsela, a prominent black South African union leader, had died a day after his release from police custody last week. He was not the only victim of apparent official violence. Later in the week, South African police confirmed that another black activist, Student Leader Sipho Mutsi, 20, had died after suffering "convulsions" while undergoing police interrogation. In Mutsi's case, the autopsy report noted that death could have been caused by "a blow on the top of his head."

The deaths raised the already high tensions in black communities, where at least 30 blacks have died in outbreaks of violence. In New Brighton township, near Port Elizabeth, police shot and killed a 15-year-old boy who, they said, was robbing a bus. The deaths increased political strains on the government of Executive President P.W. Botha. As liberal politicians pressed the government to hold an official inquiry into the deaths of Raditsela and Mutsi, the Afrikaner right wing was protesting relaxation of the apartheid laws. The latest move: an end to the plan that would force 700,000 blacks to move from their townships to government-created tribal homelands.