But It’s Whites Only; Police Cite Mine Peril : S. Africa Pupils Get Armored Escort

PIET RETIEF, South Africa —  White children who live near the Swaziland border ride to school in armored police trucks because of guerrilla land mines, but black children must walk to school, a newspaper said Sunday.

The Sunday Star said that a mining company in the area has provided an armored truck for the children of its employees, while other white children in the eastern Transvaal border area ride to school in Piet Retief in a police vehicle.

A police spokesman, Lt. Col. Steve van Rooyen, was quoted as saying the South African police have used the armored trucks, called Casspirs, to transport children and members of policemen’s families in the border areas for years.

“It is not uncommon to use (police) Casspirs for the transportation of civilians,” he was quoted as saying.

Maj. D. Engelbrecht, duty officer for the South African Police, said Sunday the children transported by Casspir in the Mahamba border area are the children of policemen. He said they ride on the police vehicle because it makes the trip to Piet Retief each day to pick up mail.

Asked why the children of black policemen weren’t given rides, the major said the divisional police commissioner hadn’t given her that information. She said she assumed the black children did not attend school in town.

Robert Nhlangethwa, a black missionary who runs a black school along a dirt road used by one of the Casspirs, was quoted by the Star as saying, “Hundreds of taxis and buses travel these roads weekly. Black children walk to school on this road, but we have no fear of land mines.”

Since Jan. 4, 1986, there have been 21 reported mine explosions in South Africa, all of them in Transvaal province. Thirteen people have died, at least eight of them black. Two were black infants. The injuries total 25 people, including four white children.

The government has blamed the mines on the African National Congress, the main guerrilla organization fighting to overthrow white rule. The ANC has said in the past that laying mines on farm roads is justifiable because border farmers have been incorporated into the South African defense system.