MDANTSANE, Ciskei, South Africa -- When Hooshmand Anvari first walked into the Bahá'í Center in this all-black township, wearing a big smile and holding his hands on his head, many thought he was about to pull one of his famous pranks.
"He always used to joke," said Shumi Nkonzo, who was present that Sunday in mid-March. "We thought he was joking again."
But when Ms. Nkonzo and the other local Bahá'ís who were gathered for a discussion on family life saw a young man following closely behind with a gun pointed at Mr. Anvari's back, they knew it was no laughing matter.
In all, four young and angry black men came into the Bahá'í Center on 13 March, while two others stood guard outside. Carrying automatic weapons, the four ordered Mr. Anvari and the two other whites who were present to stand apart from the 13 black adults and children.
"They said that the whites must stand there on one side of the room, and the blacks must stand on the other," said Ms. Nkonzo, who is 75 years old. "Then they told the whites to take their keys out of their pockets. And then they just shot them."
Mr. Anvari, a 43-year-old computer salesman with a wife and three young children, died instantly, as did Riaz Razavi, the 44-year-old director of finance at the nearby University of Fort Hare. Dr. Shamam Bakhshandegi, a 29-year-old dentist, was found to be still breathing after the gunmen had cleared out. But he was dead by the time he reached the local hospital -- the same hospital where he saw patients, mostly black, each weekday morning.
In a phone call to the South African Press Association, a man claimed the killings had been done by the Azanian Liberation Army, a militant black group. Newspaper accounts suggested that the attack may have come as a terrorist protest to the decision by the Pan Africanist Congress to suspend its armed struggle in advance of South Africa's first multi-racial elections in April.
For the Bahá'í community of South Africa, the killing of three of its members came as a shock. For more than 40 years, Bahá'ís in South Africa had worked steadfastly for integration of the races.
"It is ironic that Bahá'ís had to be the victims
of a racist attack, when in fact we have always worked for racial
unity and togetherness," said Krishna Naidoo, chairman of
the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of
South Africa, the national governing council.