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Possibly signaling that the Administration's patience with Botha had run out, a White House official hinted that Reagan may employ some type of sanctions against the South African government, despite his repeated criticism of such tactics as ineffective. While Reagan will probably veto the package of penalties that Congress is expected to approve when it reconvenes next month, he could put a few of the lesser steps into effect by Executive Order. These might include a ban on the sale of computers used to aid in the administration of apartheid, as well as an end to Government loans to U.S. companies that do not follow guidelines requiring that black and white workers in South Africa be treated equally. But Reagan reportedly would reject any ban on the importation of Krugerrand gold coins or any halt to new U.S. investments in South Africa. Such moves, in the Administration's view, would reduce job opportunities for blacks.
Botha's meeting with the clergymen did nothing to lift the growing concern over South Africa's future. One reason Tutu gave for not attending was that he saw no hope for progress so soon after Botha's Durban speech. The nine clergymen, including blacks and whites and five of the nation's major denominations, made four demands: that apartheid be dismantled; that the state of emergency declared by the government last July 20 be lifted; that a national convention be called to rewrite the constitution; and that black leaders be allowed to take part in shaping this document. Afterward, the Rev. Denis Hurley, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Durban, said Botha had not responded directly to any of the points. The President's only concession was to look into the clergymen's charges of police brutality toward blacks.
Beyond the continued killings, the new allegations against police last week included rape. A 70-year-old black woman in the town of Cradock claimed in a sworn statement that on Aug. 3 two white soldiers seized her, carried her away in an armored personnel carrier, and raped her in a field. A 16-year-old girl from the black township of Soweto told a local community leader that she had been gang-raped by black policemen while being held without charge in a jail.
In Soweto, meanwhile, police swept through neighborhoods, searched homes and seized black schoolchildren who have been boycotting classes to protest apartheid and inferior education for blacks. Some of those detained were jailed overnight. When Tutu heard of the seizures, he rushed to the scene, and, again demonstrating his gift for mediation, defused the situation. He won an agreement from Brigadier Johann Coetzee, the commissioner of South Africa's police, to release all children under 13 immediately, and the rest after their names were recorded. Coetzee also promised not to detain any more children under ten. In Cape province, six blacks were killed and 26 wounded when police fired shotguns at a mob they claimed had been pelting them with stones.
In a rare indication that the authorities were trying to reduce tensions, the Transvaal division of the Supreme Court in Pretoria delayed for at least three weeks the scheduled hanging of Benjamin Moloise, 30, a black factory worker and poet who had been convicted of killing a black police officer in 1982. Meanwhile, leaders of the all-black National Union of Mineworkers postponed their strike deadline for one week.