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The week began with the most dramatic show of civil disobedience in South Africa in several years. About 300 protesters of all races, led by Naude and the Rev. Allan Boesak, the colored minister who heads the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, marched on Parliament in Cape Town to deliver a petition. In it, they demanded that the government keep police out of black townships and speak to "leaders chosen by the people, not government-chosen community leaders." When police told the group to disperse, the demonstrators knelt and sang Onward, Christian Soldiers, before being bundled into police vans. In all, 239 were arrested; all of them refused $25 admission-of-guilt fines and, though released, were ordered to appear in court in June.
At the same time, the police explanation of the Uitenhage tragedy, the bloodiest in South Africa since Sharpeville, opened a Pandora's box of controversy. Minister of Law and Order Louis Le- Grange initially told Parliament that the 4,000 demonstrators had provoked the gunfire by flinging stones and gasoline bombs at policemen. In a later statement he said the demonstrators threatened to march on white sections of the town. He also claimed that the police had fired a warning shot and that only one of their armored trucks was in the area.
When the government-appointed investigator, Eastern Cape Judge Douglas Kannemeyer, began his inquiry into the Uitenhage events last week, however, Warrant Officer Jacobus Pentz said that two police vehicles had been near by. He testified that gasoline bombs had not been thrown at the policemen and that the demonstrators had not, as claimed, posed an "immediate threat." LeGrange's account, Pentz said, might have been "a little exaggerated."
The debate did not end there. In a 52-page report on the killings, the white parliamentary opposition, the Progressive Federal Party, maintained that the "warning shot" had hit a black on a bicycle. "Have you ever tried riding uphill while throwing stones at the police?" challenged P.F.P. Member Helen Suzman. Boesak, for his part, said that according to township residents, the policemen had not only placed sticks and stones in the hands of the dead to make them appear to have been aggressors but had also shot some who had already been injured. "This," said Boesak, "was summary execution and cold- blooded murder."
The government tried repeatedly to quell the uproar. Minister of Justice Kobie Coetsee urged that the Uitenhage affair not be discussed in Parliament until Kannemeyer presented his findings; Johan Greeff, the Speaker, rejected the plea. In his parliamentary address the next day, Botha made an appeal similar to Coetsee's. It was ironic, he said, that the need for strict law enforcement had arisen just as his government was hoping to extend black rights. Still, he stood firmly behind the embattled LeGrange. The President even contrived to place the blame for the upheaval on opponents of apartheid, pointedly lamenting the persistence of those who protest "under the guise of moral and religious conviction." Such people, he said, were determined to foment unrest and see the country "go up in flames."