SOUTH Africa's government is drafting extra police and possibly even troops into the Northern Province town of Potgietersrus today to escort the first 20 black children into an all white primary school.
Plans for the operation were announced by the provincial government yesterday after a Pretoria court refused Potgietersrus primary school leave to appeal against a judgment ordering it to admit black pupils.
The court ruled that there were reasonable grounds to suppose that a higher court would overturn the judgment, which fund that the school was acting in a racist and discriminatory manner.
Racial tensions have been increasing in the town ever since white parents prevented the first three black children from entering the school three weeks ago. After yesterday's judgment was announced, a number of parents who gathered outside the school said they were "disgusted" and would use violence if necessary to prevent black children being admitted.
"This ANC government wants to show the white people they are going to give us a hiding," one man told The Irish Times. "If we don't co operate with them they will force us. If they want force, we will give them force as well."
The parents said they would hold a meeting outside the school before it opened tomorrow and physically prevent any black children from entering. The school board, which denies it is racist and claims to be acting to defend minority Afrikaner culture, said it would try to take the case to South Africa's Constitutional Court.
A spokesman for the board, Dr Mof Erasmus, said there would be some form of blockade of the school gate today, but the board would not condone any violence or the carrying of weapons. He believed that most white parents would immediately withdraw their children from the school if blacks were allowed to attend.
Yesterday afternoon the provincial premier, Mr Ngoako Ramatlhodi, and the education minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, visited the school to register 18 of the children, while a small group of angry white parents gathered under police surveillance outside.
Afterwards, Mr Motsoaledi said that a member of the school board who was present had instructed the principal not to provide registration forms for the children, but that the principal had complied when he threatened to dismiss him.
Earlier in the day, an Afrikaans speaking journalist had asked a little white girl, on her way into the school, what she thought of the problem. "It is very silly," she said. "They must let the black children in. But they must not sit next to me".