White Gunman Kills 2 S. African Blacks

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — As thousands of South Africans marched in peaceful protest on Saturday, a white gunman opened fire on demonstrators in a conservative town south of Johannesburg, killing two black marchers and critically wounding a third.

A white man with alleged links to right-wing groups was arrested at the scene of the attack, which followed a week of often-violent protests stemming from the April 10 assassination of black nationalist leader Chris Hani by a white gunman.

And, late Saturday, police announced the arrest of Clive Derby-Lewis, a leading Conservative Party member of Parliament, as a suspect in the Hani killing. Derby-Lewis, a well-known legislator and spokesman for the far right, was an acquaintance of Janusz Walus, the 40-year-old white extremist arrested minutes after Hani’s assassination in possession of the murder weapon.

The arrest, which police said stemmed from “intensive questioning” of Walus, was the first suggestion of a right-wing conspiracy to kill Hani. Until Saturday, police had said they could find no evidence of a conspiracy because Walus, a Polish immigrant and South African citizen, was refusing to answer their questions.

But police have said the murder weapon was stolen from air force headquarters by right-wingers and that a “hit list” containing the names and addresses of political leaders was found in Walus’ home. Also, several right-wing groups have offered to pay for Walus’ defense.

The death of Hani, a key African National Congress negotiator and leader of the Communist Party, and the right-wing attack Saturday have added to growing fears of a race war between right-wing whites and left-wing blacks in South Africa. Mobs of blacks have killed and injured several whites in recent days. And leaders on the right, angered by those attacks, have threatened to retaliate.

Nelson Mandela’s ANC, deploring what it called the “provocative deed” on Saturday, said the killing of marchers in Vanderbijlpark was aimed at “precipitating racial tensions and leading our country into chaos.”

More than 40,000 people participated in half a dozen ANC protests in city centers on Saturday, including a crowd of 20,000 in downtown Johannesburg. Except for a few cases of looting, the marches were generally peaceful, police said.

In Vanderbijlpark, an industrial city about 30 miles from Johannesburg, 3,000 blacks marched through nearly deserted downtown streets. The marchers were harassed by 10 right-wing whites walking beside a small pickup shadowing the procession. As police watched, the whites shouted epithets at the black marchers, and a few fired shots into the air.

As the protest was ending, the driver of the pickup opened fire on a throng of the marchers, killing two instantly. Within seconds, police broke a window in the assailant’s car and hauled out the driver, a bearded white man in his late 40s. A Johannesburg newspaper reported today that the suspect had close links with the far-right Afrikaner Resistance Movement, known as the AWB after its Afrikaans initials.

A spokesman at AWB headquarters declined comment on the attacks. Police refused to name the suspect Saturday but said he will be brought into court Monday.

The ANC has staged more than 100 marches and rallies in recent days to vent black anger over the assassination of Hani, whose funeral is Monday.

But ANC leaders, who have renewed their commitment to black-white negotiations, also are using Hani’s death to step up pressure on the government to agree on a date for the country’s first democratic elections.

In a petition presented by marchers to police in Johannesburg, ANC leaders demanded that agreement be reached by the end of May on a date for those elections and on “transitional councils” to oversee security forces during the election campaign.