& YrEGULAR ,/grouhd 2.18/kg WOODWARD’S ■Mr f M SLICED WHITE SESAME BREAD African Eden turns into killing grounds by PATRICK NAGLE Southam News EDENDALE, South Africa — In jarlier times, this little valley nust have carried the biblical Dromise of its namesake as an unspoiled earthly paradise. The green slopes are dotted with pastel-painted houses surrounded oy jacaranda trees flashing their royal purple blooms. Although it is a segregated township under South Africa’s racial laws, the community has an air of rural permanence about it that is not evident in the larger, black suburbs of Johannesburg, 600 km to the west. But there is no peace in this Eden as the malevolent pressure of factional violence has turned the streets into killing grounds; houses burning, women and children murdered in an orgy of uncontrolled conflict. Authorities say more than 60 people have been killed in the past month in the black communities surrounding Pietermaritzburg, the industrial and administrative hub of Natal province on South Africa’s eastern flank. “In the last three weeks terrible things have happened here,” says Rev. Lizo Jafta, acting chairman of the regional church council and a resident of the area. “I have had to conduct a number of funeral services because of this violence,” Jafta says. “The worst was a mother and son who were killed in a revenge attack. “The son looked after his mother who was mentally deranged and caused no one any trouble. It was a case of mistaken identity.” In another senseless incident a baby was decapitated by a machete in retaliation against the infant’s relatives who had offended one of the many gangs who roam the streets dealing their own justice. The Edendale community, just one of more than a dozen settlements torn by the fighting, has been cut into war zones by the factions. The main highway that crosses the township at the valley floor serves as the demarcation line. Above the highway, the districts have been renamed. Moscow and Angola, Luanda and Lusaka. Below the highway sits the police station protecting access to the Christian Ecumenical Centre and the older houses along the valley banks. Refugees from the fighting are separated from their wives and families and commercial activity has been widely disrupted. The entire black staff of an automobile rental agency failed to show up for work last weekend after one of them was attacked by a street gang. “Every time Pietermaritzburg’s name appears in an unrest report we lose potential investors,” says Chamber of Commerce manager Paul van Uytrecht. “When we lose them, we lose employment opportunities and standards of living drop.” Workers who have to stay up all night to protect their homes and families are in no condition to work properly during the day, van Uytrecht says. The disruption has spread to the school system where students are afraid to attend their exam-writing appointments for fear of offending the vigilantes. “It is a very dangerous place to travel at night,” says Jafta. As with everything else in South Africa, there is no easy explanation for why black has turned on black brother with such savage consequences in the matter of a few months. Although both sides now deny the escalation of violence in the past weeks, it is generally agreed that a confrontation between the Zulu-land-based Inkatha movement and the United Democratic Front (UDF), a non-ethnic coalition of anti-segregation movements, was the spark that set off the current conflagration. P.G. YM/YWCA ^yi ANNOUNCEMENT KEN ROCHON P.G. Furnitureland would like to welcome Ken Rochon to their sales staff. Ken brings with him many years of experience in the furniture business and looks forward to helping you with all your furniture & appliance needs. princc ^corgc furnitureland 1313 • 1st Ave. 563-2322 (Old Pop Shoppe) On The Spot Financing Inkatha is the favored black political instrument in Natal because its leader, Mangosuthu Buthelezi claims to lead the province’s six million Zulus. Buthelezi has also earned the gratitude of the white South African government by refusing to endorse either international economic sanctions or an armed insurrection against white domination. By comparison, the UDF has been defined by the government as a cover organization for the outlawed African National Congress. Despite the believed ethnic solidarity of Zulus in Natal, the UDF and its coalition partner, the Congress of South African Trade Unions, have made significant organizational inroads into the province. “The violence in Pietermaritzburg has revealed severe cracks in the supposedly monolithic dominance of Inkatha over black politics in Natal,” writes political commentator Georgina Hamilton of Natal’s Sunday Tribune. She predicts proposed administrative power sharing in Natal between Zululand authorities and bureaucratic representatives of the white government will founder unless the political leaders take heed of this development. While such analysis can take place in abstraction, the reality is young people sitting up in the darkness waiting for a call to battle as the feared “comrades” who take the night into their own hands. They have assumed explicitly the law of the jungle; kill or be killed, and if necessary kill an enemy’s relative to ensure the books of violence are balanced. “Our main problem is that we have too many labels,” says Jafta. “Apartheid is the problem making the UDF and Inkatha fight one another. “Now there is a third element in- volved, impersonating the UDF and Inkatha, but they have their own ulterior motives. “They are looting and stealing and killing and burning and stoning houses because they are criminals.” The youths, armed mainly with knives or machetes, known as pangas, have been organized into “camps” to defend a block or a street against incursions or to avenge a previous depredation by an opposing faction. Drinking beer in “Angola,”, a comrade tells of his father and brother being killed in earlier confrontations and how his own future is inextricable from the violence that has swept the region. “I am tired all the time,” he says in despair. Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu, who led a prayers-for-peace service at Edendale last Sunday, says the Pietermaritzburg atrocities are a blight on the lives of all South Africans. “The situation is particularly horrendous when you have young children getting their heads chopped off,” Tutu says. “It is barbaric and totally for-; eign to our African values. It just shows the evils of the system of apartheid.” kj PORTED ^^■dole BANANAS 695 gram loaf the 48ssg WOODWARD’S OWN WHITE or CHOCOLATE SUPREME CAKE M 5.49 PARCEL PICK-UP BULK BEEF LIVER SKINNED & DEVEINED 1.88/kg LEAVF; YOUR GROCERIES WHILE YOU SHOP IN THE MALL OUR COVERED PICK UP AREA WILL HOLD THE M UNTIL YOU RE READY JUST DRIVE UP IN YOUR CAR AND WE WILL CHEERFULLY K SAFELY LOAD YOUR TRUNK FOR YOU Ib. Unlike many “Private labels”, Woodward’s Supreme is made up-to-a-standard not up-to-a-price. We sincerely believe the quality of the products we put our own name on is as good a: you can buy. Yet, we can price them competitively with National Brand products. USE YOUR HANDY WOODWARD’S ACCOUNT CARD. Personal shopping Thursday. November 5,1987 to Saturday, November 7,1987. We reserve the right to limit quantities. Some items may not be exactly as illustrated or may be serving suggestions only. Prices effective in our Kamloops. Penticton and Prince George Stores. Mode's. FOOD FLOORS ‘2 — The Prince George Citizen — Thursday. November 5. 1987