A black military officer killed six white soldiers and a civilian before soldiers shot him dead at a South African military base yesterday, police said.
A police spokeswoman said police were investigating whether the killings were racially motivated but the military said it was too early to draw conclusions.
According to a spokeswoman for the South African National Defence Force, Lieut Emoret Serfontein, the black officer, a lieutenant, walked into an office at the military base in Bloemfontein and opened fire with an R4 assault rifle. He then walked through to the personnel department where he fired on other people, she said.
The officer apparently also aimed his weapon at others but did not shoot them.
Other soldiers engaged in a shootout with the lieutenant and killed him. "The soldiers were on their way to a shooting practice," Lieut Serfontein said.
Those killed by the lieutenant were six males - a major and five non-commissioned officers - and a female civilian worker.
Five soldiers were injured in the attack, all of them white. Two
were shot in the chest, one of whom last night was said to be in a serious condition in hospital. Another soldier, also shot in the chest, was in a stable condition. The other three suffered bullet wounds - one was shot in a leg, the second in a shoulder and the third was cut on the head when he was grazed by a bullet.
The incident took place at the Tempe base of the First South African Infantry Battalion in Bloemfontein.
The base was visited later yesterday by the South African National Defence Force chief, Gen Siphiwe Nyanda, and the Defence Minister, Mr Mosioua Lekota, who cut short a briefing to parliament's joint committee on defence after receiving news of the incident.
Mr Nyanda announced that a military board of inquiry had been established to investigate the incident.
Tempe military base is no stranger to controversy. In June 1998 two soldiers suspected of being white right-wingers were arrested after arms and ammunition were stolen from a hijacked military truck.
Despite attempts by the former president, Mr Nelson Mandela, to effect reconciliation in a country once divided deeply by race, South Africa remains wracked by racial tension five years after the end of apartheid.
SABC radio said yesterday that Tempe base had recently seen a rise in tension resulting from efforts to integrate former black guerrillas into the former white South African military machine.
One of the toughest tasks after the end of apartheid was to incorporate former ANC guerrilla fighters into the white South African Defence Force, which fought for decades to maintain white domination.
There are about 100,000 soldiers in the South African Defence Force, although the government is working to reduce the force to around 70,000. The higher ranks still tend to be white-dominated, although the chiefs of the defence force and army are black former guerrillas.