Vigilantes Burn Out Thousands at Squatter Settlement; 6 Die

CAPE TOWN, South Africa —  More than 3,000 conservative black vigilantes swept through a large section of the sprawling Crossroads squatter settlement outside Cape Town on Monday, ousting militant youths and burning out most of the 50,000 residents.

At least six people were killed in the daylong clashes, according to police, but the actual death toll may well be more than twice that. Scores of people were reported injured in the fighting, some of the fiercest yet in South Africa’s growing civil conflict. Gunfire echoed across the squatter settlement, 12 miles from Cape Town, and thick black smoke filled the sky over the airport.

The vigilantes methodically set fire to hundreds of the wood, tin and plastic shacks in the KTC section of Crossroads, an area named for a nearby store, and a strong wind carried the flames through the settlement.

‘Bent on Murder’

“These were men bent on murder, and we were lucky to escape with our lives,” one woman, Violet Ncube, said as she comforted two small frightened children. “They set fire to my house--poured gasoline on it and lit it with a match--while we were inside. That’s what I mean when I say they are murderers.”

The vigilantes’ attack was a virtual replay of their assault three weeks ago on three other sections of Crossroads, when 48 people were killed and about 35,000 left homeless. And again, the vigilantes appeared to act without police interference and sometimes even with the authorities’ open support, bringing charges that the white government is using the vigilantes to defeat anti-apartheid militants and force the resettlement of Crossroads residents farther from Cape Town.

Fierce fighting continued throughout Monday as the vigilantes made three major attacks, each time coming through police lines behind which they had regrouped.

Sustained bursts of automatic rifle fire were heard through the day as militants, assumed to be members of an African National Congress guerrilla group, tried to defend the camp. However, they were outgunned by the vigilantes and became the targets as well for the police, who said they “eliminated” one of the riflemen.

Of the confirmed dead, five had been hacked to death and one had been shot, apparently by police. However, relief workers, checking local hospitals, clinics and the area mortuary, said that at least 15 people had been killed.

A few new shelters were established Monday afternoon in neighboring black townships, but government officials continued to insist that all residents must move to a new settlement at Khayelitsha, a new town being built for blacks six miles farther from Cape Town.

The vigilantes, known as the Witdoeke, which refers in Afrikaans to the white strips of cloth they wear to identify themselves, had vowed in late April to drive out all the militant youths, who call themselves the “comrades” and who support the outlawed African National Congress. They reject the youths’ radicalism and blame them for recent disturbances here.

Meanwhile, Law and Order Minister Louis le Grange said he will seek approval today for a bill that would allow him to declare any district an “unrest area” and to take whatever action he regards as necessary to restore order. A second bill would give police the power to detain without charge anyone believed involved in unrest--or likely to become involved--for six months.