White gunman held after two Hani marchers killed

A WHITE gunman opened fire on a crowd of African National Congress supporters yesterday, killing two and seriously wounding a third, in one of several marches around South Africa - most of them peaceful - to honour the assassinated ANC leader Chris Hani.

The incident occurred in Vanderbijl Park, an industrial town 50 miles south of Johannesburg. The gunman, who was alone and who fired five shots from a car that he drove into the crowd, was promptly arrested by police. ANC officials said he was wearing an arm-band with a swastika-like design. First indications were that the killer was a member of Eugene Terreblanche's Afrikaner Resistance Movement (AWB), the organisation to which the man arrested for Mr Hani's murder, Janusz Walus, belongs.

Witnesses said that, within seconds of the shooting, police smashed the gunman's car window and dragged him out. He was described as bearded and in his late forties.

Marches were also held yesterday in Johannesburg, Pretoria and other cities. A handful of windows were smashed in Johannesburg, where the city centre was brought to a standstill, but otherwise the police and ANC officials congratulated each other on their success in co-ordinating crowd- control measures.

The peaceful protests were in a sharp contrast to the riots and looting that hit several cities last Wednesday when the ANC held more than 80 rallies in 'a national day of mourning' for Mr Hani, a hero to militant township youth. Yesterday's killings brought the death toll, in actions related to the Hani killing, to at least 26. President F W de Klerk asked Richard Goldstone, the judge he appointed to probe South Africa's endemic political violence, to investigate the unrest that has occurred since the murder.

The marches were smaller than ANC officials had expected. They had predicted that 150,000 would converge on the white city centre from Johannesburg's restive black satellite cities - police estimated the actual numbers at 25,000 - and 50,000 for Pretoria, where some 5,000 turned up. Although passions were running high, the main body of the Johannesburg march was orderly as it passed through deserted streets.

Most of the marchers were of the standard urban township variety: men, women and children, some in jeans, some in finely tailored dresses. All were well practised in the quasi-disco, quasi- military steps of the toyi-toyi dance and the ANC liturgy. 'Amandla] Awethu] Power] To the people]' they chanted. 'Long live the spirt of Chris Hani] Long live]' and 'One Mandela] One president]' They were familar with the songs, Tula, tula mama (Don't cry mother), Zenzenina (What have we done), and the African anthem, Nkosi sikeleli Afrika. The banners conveyed the usual range of sentiments, from 'Let SA explode' to 'Hani wanted peace'. A variation was provided by small groups of tribesmen, squatter-camp dwellers, harmlessly wielding axes, spears and - inexplicably - brooms, and wearing, in some cases, wigs and women's dresses. A tiny contingent of Pan-Africanist Congress supporters chanted, 'One settler] One bullet]' and shouted abuse at white journalists.

One black man, clutching his neck, said he had been hit by pellets from police shotguns. The circumstances of the shooting were unclear and he did not appear badly wounded. The police and army were a model of force sensitively restrained. Police helicopters and light military planes patrolled the skies, but personnel on the ground kept a low profile.

A bigger challenge to the ANC leadership and the police is expected today, when Mr Hani's body is to lie in state in a Soweto football stadium, and tomorrow, when he is buried.

ANC supporters are expected to arrive in special trains and buses from all over the country, and ANC officials are making special arrangements to accommodate a crowd likely to be too big for the 80,000-seater stadium.

(Photograph omitted)

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