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The relentless toll stems in part from the breakdown of traditional authority in the townships. Of about 20,000 blacks who have been arrested since the state of emergency was imposed last June, many were local leaders who headed activist community organizations and helped maintain order in the black townships. With them now in jail, new and more violent leaders have come forward. In some cases the toughest person on the street rules, exercising a savage authority that does not dispense much justice and drives many townships toward chaos. Some township residents have complained that white police authorities often remain on the outskirts, watching to make sure that the violence stays confined to the black community. Inside the townships, meanwhile, the mobs seize control.
In many areas the violence is part of a struggle among South Africa's black factions for the soul of the antiapartheid movement and for political power. The battle is waged between youths and their elders, between tribes, classes and political organizations. The names and identities may differ widely, as gangs call themselves the A-Team, the Green Berets, Amabutho (the Warriors) or Mabangalala (the Intimidators). In Soweto, the conservative Zulu tribesmen are often in open warfare with the more radical Xhosas. In Kwanobuhle, the fighting is between members of the all-black Azanian People's Organization and ) the multiracial United Democratic Front.
The most dangerous group is the militant youths known as the "comrades," who have been responsible for much of the killing in the townships. Ranging in age from about 14 to 22, they are typically poor, uneducated and overflowing with rage. In their fierce battle to gain control of communities like Soweto, they have become the chief users of necklaces, the executioners who make the night a time of terror for the black populace. Barbara Harker, training manager in Johannesburg for the National Institute for Crime Prevention and Rehabilitation of Offenders, has studied the comrades. She concluded that the poverty and hopelessness of life in the townships make them impulsive and largely incapable of compromise. The primary object of their wrath is anyone suspected of collaborating with the government. The victim's "crime" can be trivial or wholly nonexistent. Even payment of rent for government-owned housing can be a capital offense. Some recent victims:
-- Mbuseli ("Freddy") Nqgene, 39, a mental-hospital attendant, was murdered in Kwazakele township near Port Elizabeth because the comrades thought he was a police informer. Nqgene had been mistakenly arrested on a rape charge and released within hours. His killers assumed that he was let loose so quickly because he was in the pay of the police. As a consequence, they struck him with axes, stabbed him 13 times and set him on fire.
-- Patrick Marenene, a community council member in the township outside Oudtshoorn in the Cape province, was watching television at his home when a mob gathered in front and demanded that he come outside. Marenene managed to escape as the comrades threw his furniture into the street and ignited it. As Marenene was picking through the rubble two days later, the youths returned. This time they quickly hacked and burned him to death.