South Africa Wrestles With Rising Violence
POLICE said yesterday that they charged the son-in-law of a National Party lawmaker with murder following a clash between supporters of party leader President Frederik de Klerk and the African National Congress.
The fatal shooting of an ANC supporter at the NP rally Wednesday was an example of intensifying campaign violence as South Africa's historic first all-race election draws near. President De Klerk said that ANC President Nelson Mandela called him to express concern over the incident.
The woman was killed at the NP rally in the Roodepan township near Kimberley after Mr. De Klerk canceled a campaign appearance and clashes erupted between ANC and NP supporters. Earlier, De Klerk was hit by an object thrown by ANC supporters when he tried to speak at one campaign rally. Police said an Inkatha Freedom Party official has been arrested in the slayings Saturday of 15 election workers for the rival ANC.
Meanwhile, hundreds of rescuers used dogs and sonar equipment in a despairing search yesterday for up to 88 people missing after a dam, at the Harmony gold mine near Virginia in the Orange Free State, burst during a rain storm Tuesday night.
A police spokeswoman said searchers had dug out 13 bodies. Most of the dead were buried alive in their homes when a six-feet-high wall of slurry, laced with cyanide used to extract gold from ore, roared through a housing complex for mainly white mine workers. UN warns of imminent Kenya famine
KENYA faces the prospect of widespread famine because low rainfall over the past two years has ruined harvests, the United Nations said Wednesday.
The UN launched an appeal for $114 million for the East African country, mainly to import food and to fund a voluntary repatriation program of Somali and other refugees. The UN estimates a 2.2 million ton shortfall in cereal output in Kenya between last July and September this year.
Officials called it the worst drought in a decade, particularly affecting the fertile, northeast Mandera district.
Through the inter-agency appeal, the World Food Programme hopes to provide aid to 2 million drought victims to compensate for harvest deficits and livestock deaths. The so-called ``short rains'' at the start of the year totally failed, and UN officials will be closely monitoring rainfall and crop production during the period of April to October.
UN officials expect 140,000 of 320,000 Somali refugees will be able to return to their homeland this year. This would leave an overall total of 250,000 African refugees in Kenya, including Sudanese, Ethiopians, and Zaireans. Tribal violence flares in Rwanda
RWANDAN government soldiers and UN peacekeepers are patrolling the deserted streets of the capital Kigali, abandoned by people fleeing an upsurge in tribal violence. Frightened residents stayed holed-up in their homes and state radio broadcast an appeal for calm, asking Rwandese to return to work yesterday.
The latest violence between the majority Hutu and minority Tutsi tribes flared on Monday after unknown assailants gunned down Public Works Minister Felicien Gatabazi and two of his bodyguards. At least 37 other people have died in clashes in Kigali.
A ceremony to swear in a new government was called off on Wednesday after several political parties staged a boycott, accusing President Juvenal Habyarimana of manipulating the political process to his advantage.
President Habyarimana, in power since 1973, maintained going ahead with a new administration was the only way of averting more bloodshed. But opponents accused him of taking advantage of the current crisis to consolidate his hold on power.
He has called a meeting of all political parties Friday to try to defuse the crisis.
