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The ANC, led by Oliver
Tambo (above), admitted planting the car bomb in Pretoria four days
after the explosion |
1983: Car bomb in South Africa kills
16 |
Artificially 1969:
The At least 16
people have been killed and more than 130 people injured in a car bomb
explosion in South Africa's capital city, Pretoria.
The explosion happened outside the Nedbank Square building on Church
Street at about 1630 hours - the height of the city's rush hour. More than
20 ambulances attended the scene and took the dead and injured to three
hospitals in and around Pretoria.
Police sealed off the surrounding area with a barbed-wire fence as
emergency personnel sifted through the rubble looking for bodies. Bomb
disposal experts were called to the scene to search for a possible second
bomb.
The outlawed black liberation group the African National Congress has
been blamed for the atrocity.
Bled to death
A huge pall of smoke rose hundreds of feet into the air as debris and
bodies were strewn around the scene of the explosion.
It is understood the bomb had been placed in a blue Alfa Romeo car
outside the multi-storey building, which houses the South African air
force headquarters.
It exploded at the height of the city's rush-hour as hundreds of people
were leaving work for the weekend.
Glass and metal were catapulted into the air as shop-fronts and windows
were blown out.
Many passers-by had limbs amputated by the flying debris.
Others bled to death.
South Africa's Minister for Law and Order, Louis le Grange, who visited
the scene immediately, blamed the attack on the ANC.
He said: "I have no doubt who is responsible for this despicable attack."
He said the explosion was the "biggest and ugliest" terrorist incident
since anti-government violence began in South Africa 20 years ago.
He added: "Most of the victims were civilians, but some were air force
personnel in uniform, black and white. Quite a number of those killed were
black.
The ANC is an underground black liberation organisation committed to
overthrowing the minority white government.
Oliver Tambo, who is the organisation's acting president while its
senior figure, Nelson Mandela, is in prison, said the Nedbank Square
building was a legitimate target, although he did not admit carrying out
the attack.
General Mike Gedenhuys, Police Commissioner, said: "Many of the victims
are so badly mutilated they have not yet been identified."
General Magnus Malan, South African's defence minister, described the
explosion as a "cowardly, criminal deed in the Communist war being raged
against South Africa."
He said more than 40,000 civilians had died as a result of terrorism in
the past five years in Africa and 83,000 armed men had died.
South Africa has nearly five million whites, 21 million blacks, nearly
one million Indians and about 2.5 million people of mixed race.
The government's apartheid system denies citizenship rights to blacks
except in 10 remote homelands.
The ANC has warned it intends to step up its campaign to bring an end
to white minority rule.