South Africa Deadly Raid

Early one morning late last week a band of South African army commandos moved furtively through the streets of Gaborone, Botswana's capital, five miles from the South African border. Spreading out in small groups through the city of 60,000, they struck at nine homes and an office, ripping through doors and windows with automatic-rifle fire and hand grenades. Their targets: members of the African National Congress, the main guerrilla organization opposed to South Africa's policy of apartheid. According to the South Africans, the 35- min. attack left 13 ANC guerrillas dead. At least two other people also died, according to authorities in Botswana, including a six-year-old girl and a Dutch social worker.

The attack came less than a month after nine South African commandos were ambushed, and one captured, during a clandestine foray into Angola. It showed South Africa's determination to continue hitting foreign ANC bases, even in nominally friendly countries like Botswana, in defiance of international opinion. Already angered by the Angola raid, Washington reacted to the Botswana adventure by calling U.S. Ambassador Herman Nickel home for "consultations," a gesture intended to show extreme displeasure. State Department Spokesman Bernard Kalb declared that the two incidents raised "the most serious questions" about South Africa's recent actions. The U.S. response, the angriest since Ronald Reagan became President, could be a sign that the Administration is responding to domestic pressure to take a tougher stand on South Africa. Both the House and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee have called for economic sanctions against the country.

General Constand Viljoen, head of the South African Defense Force, accused the ANC of carrying out dozens of terrorist acts in South Africa from bases in Botswana. He said the organization was planning an assassination campaign against government officials and black and mixed-race moderates. The South African raid resembled a 1982 attack on ANC bases in Lesotho and later operations against guerrillas in Mozambique. South African officials contend that the guerrillas regrouped in Botswana and Angola after being driven from Mozambique, Swaziland and Lesotho. Foreign Minister Roelof ("Pik") Botha said that South Africa had warned Botswana repeatedly about harboring terrorists. "We will not allow ourselves to be attacked with impunity," he declared.

Botswana rejected South African claims that the dead were ANC guerrillas, referring to them instead as "South African refugees." It has accused South Africa of trying to bring pressure on Botswana to sign a formal nonaggression treaty similar to the ones it now has with Swaziland and Mozambique. Last week's raid also appeared to be designed to cause maximum embarrassment to the ANC just before the organization's planned weekend "summit" meeting at an undisclosed location in southern Africa, where the rebels were expected to plan their future campaign against the South African government.

In Pretoria, meanwhile, a high-court judge issued the conclusions of a government-ordered inquiry into the country's bloodiest confrontation in 25 years. Last March South African police opened fire on a highway procession of 4,000 blacks, killing 20. In a report to South Africa's Parliament, Justice Donald Kannemeyer accused the police of having fabricated portions of their account of the shooting outside the town of Uitenhage, near Port Elizabeth.

Contrary to police claims, said the judge, the blacks had not assaulted the police with stones and gasoline bombs, nor were they "a mob armed to attack" Uitenhage. Instead, they were mourners on their way to the funerals of several blacks killed in earlier clashes with authorities. Kannemeyer condemned police for taunting the procession and for carrying only rifles and shotguns, instead of using tear gas, rubber bullets and birdshot. The report, however, exonerated Minister of Law and Order Louis Le Grange, saying he had given Parliament a misleading account of the shootings only because police had provided him with false information.