JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- South Africa halted production of its Krugerrand gold coins Wednesday and state-run television blamed the action on U.S. economic sanctions.
Announcement of the halt in production by the television service and a spokesman for the Chamber of Mines came as new violence shook Johannesburg and other cities and seven black activists testified that they were beaten, choked and given electric shocks while in a Soweto jail.
The broadcast said the halting of Krugerrand production was the first direct and identifiable result of U.S. sanctions imposed by the Reagan administration Sept. 9 to underscore opposition to apartheid. The sanctions were followed by similar measures in Europe and other countries.
A spokesman for the Chamber of Mines, which manages the production of the one-ounce gold coins that are collected around the world, confirmed that production stopped Wednesday. The chamber said 10 black workers had been laid off.
The spokesman did not confirm the South African Broadcasting Corp. report that production had to be halted because of the U.S. ban on the Krugerrand imports.
The Krugerrand, now selling at about $330, accounts for about 70 percent of the world market for gold coins, but sales fell about 25 percent last year, cutting earnings to about $1 billion.
President Reagan included a Krugerrand embargo in a package of limited sanctions designed to pressure the white-minority government into reforming its apartheid policy of racial discrimination and segregation. The package also included a ban on trade in nuclear technology, bank loans and computer sales to South Africa.
South Africa sold 1.3 million Krugerrands in the United States last year and 281,000 in the first three months of this year. The Krugerrand easily outsold its nearest rival in America, the Canadian Mapleleaf.
The announcement about the Krugerrands came after lawyers for seven black activists appealed to the Supreme Court to order a stop to torture in jails. Judge G.A. Coetzee said he would consider the request Thursday.
The former detainees and the mothers of three men still jailed said in court affidavits that the assaults were made at the Protea police station in Soweto, the nation's largest black township, located outside Johannesburg.
In Pretoria, police said the racial violence that has claimed more than 845 lives in the past 14 months continued Tuesday and Wednesday.
A spokesman said scattered incidents of stoning and arson were reported in black townships around the country. At least one man was reported wounded and four people were arrested.
Police also said vehicles and houses were torched by black rioters near Cape Town, Johannesburg and Port Elizabeth.
Soviet Mazibuko, among those who filed the affidavits, said his head was shoved into a bucket of water, into which tear gas was pumped. He said he was made to strip naked and was shocked by electrodes wired to his wrists.
'About 10 bricks were placed on my neck and back,' Mazibuko added. 'Two of the policemen stood on the bricks and then jumped up and down on them for about 20 minutes.'
Another former detainee, Doris Masenya, said in an affidavit that a hood was placed over her head and an unknown substance was injected into her arm, making her weak, dizzy and restricting her ability to speak.
'There was this strange soft sound and I felt an electric shock run through my whole body from the feet upward,' she said.' This was extremely painful and I screamed.'
Patience Murabhe said she was given electric shocks five or six times. Another former prisoner, Clive Radebe, charged he had been beaten, whipped and 'thrown up into the air and then left to fall to the ground.'
In a landmark decision Sept. 25, J.P.G. Eksteen, a Port Elizabeth supreme court judge, issued an order prohibiting police from assaulting detainees at local jails. His order came after a local government doctor charged 'detainees were being systematically assaulted and abused after their arrest.'
Saloojee and the other four activists released by authorities were detained without a trial less than 24 hours after President Pieter Botha declared a state of emergency July 21 in a bid to quell mounting racial unrest in South Africa's segregated townships.
