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Three days later, as the unrest, powered by what Naudé calls "the anger of the voteless," flickered on despite the emergency, another prominent churchman spoke at a mass funeral service in the township of KwaThema, 35 miles east of Johannesburg, to deliver a message to both black and white South Africans. He was Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu of Johannesburg, the black South African who last year was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his long struggle against apartheid. Only two weeks before, the dynamic, gray-haired bishop had saved the life of a black suspected of being a police informer after an angry mob had seized the man, set his car ablaze and tried to throw him into the flames.
Now, as Tutu stood atop a table in KwaThema's dusty sports stadium, surrounded by a crowd of 30,000, he spoke of the death of 15 local people in recent police actions. He denounced the government for its brutality, for its determination to keep the country's black majority in check, and for its decision to give the security forces free rein to stamp out dissent.
But then, fairly shouting so that his words could be heard throughout the stadium, his hands stabbing the air, he turned to the televised death of the young woman in Duduza. Said Tutu: "If you do this kind of thing again, I will find it difficult to speak for the cause of liberation. If the violence continues, I will pack my bags, collect my family and leave this beautiful country that I love so passionately and so deeply ... I say to you that I condemn in the strongest possible terms what happened in Duduza. Our cause is just and noble. That is why it will prevail and bring victory to us. You cannot use methods to attain the goal of liberation that our enemy will use against us."
With most of the crowd supporting him, but a few booing him for his moderation, the bishop continued, "Pictures of that woman being burned were shown around the world. There are many people around the world that support us. When they saw that woman burning on television, they must have said that maybe we are not ready for freedom. Let us not spoil things by such methods." The meeting ended with Tutu leading the crowd in chanting, "We dedicate ourselves to the freedom struggle/ for all of us black and white./ We shall be free."
The bishop's warning that the images of bloodshed would be used against the black protesters was soon borne out. In the face of the international furor over the government's harsh crackdown, Foreign Minister Roelof ("Pik") Botha (no kin to President Botha), sounding a theme that would be invoked repeatedly by the government, declared that South Africa would not allow its future to be decided by "perpetrators of violence who burn people alive."
At the same time, President Botha made it clear how strongly he disagreed with criticism from overseas. Sputtering that he was "speechless" at the steps taken by France, Botha said, "It amazes me that a Western government that takes an interest in Africa and in the interests of black people can take exception to a government that restores order when Communist powers and Communist-inspired powers murder black people and try to disrupt the normal life of black communities."