The Paris representative of the African National Congress was shot and killed today as she arrived at her office. The official, Dulcie September, a 45-year-old South African of mixed race, has served in France since 1984 as spokeswoman for the A.N.C., the most prominent anti-apartheid group.
Tom Sebina, a spokesman at the organization's headquarters in Lusaka, Zambia, blamed the South African Government for the killing and called on governments to crack down on all secret agents of the South African Government operating in their countries. But South Africa said it ''could not be held responsible'' for Miss September's death, and Foreign Minister Roelof F. Botha issued a statement noting that ''serious quarrels exist in the ranks of the organizations that utilize violence to obtain political objectives.''
The A.N.C. and the South-West Africa People's Organization have had political representation here, without diplomatic status, since 1981. Miss September came to Paris from Lusaka, where she worked as administrative secretary at the organization's offices. The French police said she was killed with a .22-caliber weapon as she was opening her office. She was found still holding her morning mail with two bullet wounds in the head and six empty shells on the floor.
The group's treasurer in Paris, Maurice Cukierman, said that Miss September had received several threats against her life over the last eight months and had told French police, but that ''nothing was done.'' On Sunday the Belgian police defused a bomb placed outside the A.N.C. office in Brussels, and in February shots were fired at the Belgian office of the group.
The congress maintains guerrillas in countries around South Africa, including Lesotho, Mozambique and Botswana, and has some 20 offices around the world to lobby for political support. It has been outlawed in South Africa since 1960, and its principal leader, Nelson Mandela, has been jailed there since 1962. Two slayings of A.N.C. figures in countries bordering on South Africa drew wide attention in the early 1980's.
Joe Gqabi, a congress representative in Zimbabwe, was killed by gunfire July 31, 1981, at his home in Harare, then called Salisbury. And on Aug. 17, 1982, Ruth First, was killed by a parcel bomb in her office in Maputo, Mozambique. She was a leading member of the A.N.C. and the wife of Joe Slovo, a South African Communist leader and a principal figure in the military wing of the A.N.C.
The killing here today quickly became an issue in the French presidential campaign. Prime Minister Jacques Chirac's Government was criticized by opponents on both the right and the left for what was called a lax attitude toward Miss September's security.
The Socialist Party called for a protest rally in front of the South African Embassy, and the Communist Party's presidential candidate, Andre Lajoinie, accused Mr. Chirac's Government of ''political complicity'' with South Africa. Mr. Chirac is a candidate for the presidency in the election next month, as is the Socialist incumbent, Francois Mitterrand. Mr. Mitterrand's wife, Danielle, said the killing of Miss September today provoked a sense ''of horror in the face the cowardice of this act.'' 4 GUERRILLAS REPORTED KILLED
JOHANNESBURG, March 29 -South African security forces announced today that they had shot and killed four suspected guerrillas of the African National Congress near the border with Zimbabwe on Monday. The gun battle in the northern tribal homeland of Venda brought the number of suspected guerrillas reported killed by the South African military to 12 in the last five days. The attacks follow repeated warnings by Pretoria in recent months to neighboring countries that allow guerrillas to use their territories.
The killing of the four guerrillas was announced today by Brig. Albertus Botha, Chief of Staff of the Far North Military Command in northern Transvaal. He said in an interview on state-run television that he did not regard the recent activity as new infiltration by guerrillas.
Source: New York Times
No comments:
Post a Comment