Congressmen Tell Concern to S. Africans : Say They Will Carry Home Story of Visit to Black Shantytown

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Touring congressmen told residents of a squalid black shantytown today that they care about their fate and promised to carry home “the story of what we have seen here.”

The six-member congressional delegation met earlier with Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, a prominent black opponent of apartheid who urged them not to side with those favoring violent opposition to the government’s official policy of racial segregation.

Also today, a Supreme Court judge postponed a ruling on black activist Winnie Mandela’s challenge to a government order barring her from Johannesburg and the neighboring black suburb of Soweto, where she owns a home. Mandela’s lawyers ended their arguments today.

Boesak Escorts Group

The six congressmen were shepherded through the Crossroads squatter camp near Cape Town by the Rev. Allan Boesak, head of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and a patron of the United Democratic Front opposition coalition.

“We care and we will demonstrate that when we go back,” Rep. William H. Gray III (D-Pa.), the leader of the delegation, told about 300 people who met the delegation in a small, dusty schoolyard.

Many among the community of 100,000 have been crippled or injured by police action, residents told the American visitors. Ivan Toms, a paramedic in a private clinic that provides the only formal health care in Crossroads, said 500 people had been treated for gunshot wounds in the last nine months.

‘Will Take Back Story’

“We share in your concern for freedom and human dignity,” Gray said, calling Crossroads “an area of extreme poverty and squalor that needs a lot of help.”

“We will take back the story of what we saw here and share it with others in America,” he said.

Gray earlier praised Buthelezi, head of the self-governing Kwazulu homeland where 3.4 million Zulu people live, for his “very candid” remarks and said he was impressed by the chief’s staunch opposition to apartheid.

Buthelezi surprised the delegation with his commitment to negotiating for change, said Gray, who found Buthelezi’s views “productive, positive and helpful in our fact-finding mission.”

Sanction Effect Studied

The primary objective of the delegation’s swing through South Africa is to determine whether there is a need for tougher sanctions against South Africa than those ordered by President Reagan.

After the breakfast meeting, Buthelezi told reporters he told the delegation he is opposed to the partial sanctions and to violent opposition to the South African government.

He told the American congressmen he believed it is vital that political exiles and imprisoned black nationalist leaders participate in peace negotiations.

The U.S. delegation had hoped to meet jailed African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela in a Cape Town top-security prison, but their request was finally quashed Wednesday by President Pieter W. Botha during a sometimes stormy meeting. (Story on Page 4.)