NATION AND WORLD
University Daily Kansan, October 24, 1984
358 arrested in South Africa
By United Press International
SEBOKENG, South Africa Thousands of soldiers and police searched the homes of 175,000 blacks in riot-torn townships south of Johannesburg yesterday, arresting more than 350 people in a raid aimed at crushing the worst unrest since 1976.
The house-to-house searches began at 3 a.m. and continued late into the night as teen-age conscripts in full battle dress dressed streets at 10-yard intervals while police entered and searched every home in Sbokeng, Sharpeville and Boipatong.
At least 358 people were arrested, all but nine in Sebokeng. Troops remained in Sebokeng for about 11 hours, arresting blacks on charges arising from illegal possession of arms at the township without proper permits. No violence was reported in any of the townships.
Residents of the townships who had been questioned and released were given orange day-glow stickers to wear. Police said about 175,000 homes were searched.
NEWS OF THE raid spread quickly to the black townships ringing Johannesburg and reporters enveloped the atmosphere as "very tense."
Law and Order Minister Louis le Grange said the massive operation, code-named "Bulrush," had been a move to "rid the affected areas of criminal and revolutionary elements."
air-apartheid activists condemn sweep as a "declaration of civil war"
"The government has, decided that this lawlessness must be curbed with all the available means and that it should be rewarded effectively," Le Grang said.
Bishop Desmond Tutu, secretary general of the South African Council of Churches who won the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize, said he might cut short
his United States tour because of the government action.
"IT'S POSSIBLE THAT the situation could develop to such an extent that I would feel that it was better for me to be back home than here," Tutu said before making a speech at a church in Essex Fells, N.J.
In Washington, State Department spokesman John Hughes said the United States "deeply regrets" the action and called on the South African government to open discussions with non-whites to open the way for political participation by all races.
The massive raid marked the second time this month army troops were deployed with police to curb black unrest, the worst since rioting in 1976, which has claimed the lives of 80 blacks and one white.
The two months of unrest was triggered by rent hikes and the poor quality of black schools but has been fueled by blacks' resentment of apartheid, the government's system of racial segregation.
Soviets face agricultural crisis
By United Press International
MOSCOW — President Konstantin Chernenko told a special meeting of the Communist Party Central Committee the Soviet Union is beset by an "acute" crisis in agricultural production.
The Soviet leader, in a lengthy speech carried by the official news agency Tass, proposed a control measure toigate huge tracts of land in the south.
The Central Committee meeting came at a time when the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates the Soviet 1984 grain crop to be 65
million tons short of its target of 240 million tons.
"The situation in agriculture in a number of sectors remains difficult," Chernenko said.
Chernenko, who presented proposals to guide the country's agriculture into the year 2000, described grain production as the country's key problem. Western diplomats said the proposals presented little change in the Soviet's conservative, centralized system.
'Agricultural production still lags behind the country's growing requirements... The problem of providing the population of many
cities with foodstuffs, above all meat,
is still acute."
Mikhail Gorbachev, the Politburo member responsible for agriculture, did not deliver the major agricultural address. Western diplomats saw it as an indication he may have stepped down from the post.
Chenkerno, whose new agricultural proposals were later detailed by Prime Minister Nikola Tikhonov, proposed a massive irrigation project he said would allow farmers to double their crop output and reduce water use in the circumstances which the Soviets have blamed for six years of poor crops.
Afghan city pillaged by Soviets
By United Press International
NEW DELHI, India — Soviet troops in Afghanistan looted and pillaged Kandahar twice in one week in a search for Islamic rebel们 who have turned the country's second largest city into a virtual no man's
land, Western diplomats said yesterday.
The diplomats also said rebels had killed 30 Soviet troops Oct. 12 in Jowzian province, bordering the Soviet Union. An unspecified number of Afghan forces also were killed, they said.
Kandahar, 280 miles southeast of
Kabul, was "thoroughly searched, pillaged and after that the surrounding area was bombed and crops burned" on Oct. 10-11 and Oct. 14-15, a diplomat said.
Another diplomat said. "The Soviet troops looted houses and buildings" Oct. 10-11 and again on Oct. 13.
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