South Africa admits failing slum dwellers as protests continue

Jul 23, 2009, 17:42 GMT

Johannesburg - South Africa acknowledged Thursday that a lack of responsiveness by government to the concerns of slum dwellers was driving the frustration that has bubbled over in a series of violent protests in recent weeks.

The government was reacting to the protests that have ripped through townships and squatter camps in three provinces, resulting in violent standoffs between residents and police.

A government task team deployed to north-eastern Mpumalanga province to investigate the unrest said in its report released Thursday that a 'lack of responsiveness to issues raised by communities' was partly to blame, SAPA news agency reported.

Police cars have been stoned, shops looted, migrants attacked and public buildings torched in protest over the slow rollout in poor communities of basic services such as electricity and sanitation. The police have responded in some areas with rubber bullets, injuring several peoples.

On Thursday the flashpoints east of Johannesburg in Gauteng province and in Mpumalanga were mostly quiet, but police were bracing for more protests.

Around 5,000 residents of Ramaphosa squatter camp, scene of the worst atrocity in a spate of similar riots in May 2008 in which a Mozambican migrant was burnt alive, marched on the nearest town hall to hand over a memorandum of their grievances.

The march, which was heavily guarded by riot police, passed off peacefully. The mayor promised to respond to the residents demands for improved living conditions within a week.

In Balfour township, around 50 kilometres east of Johannesburg, 30 foreign migrants were still sheltering in a local police station after fleeing attack by rampaging mobs on Tuesday.

Accusing migrants of taking their jobs and causing crime, groups of residents attacked migrants and destroyed their shops.

'We are not going to allow anybody to use illegal means to achieve their objective,' Cooperative Governance Minister Sicelo Shiceka warned.

'The attacks on foreign nationals in these protests is a further act of criminality which will not be tolerated,' he added, saying the attacks were all the more alarming given that South Africa was preparing to host 'the entire world' during the football World Cup next year.

The government investigation into the violence said the slow pace of development in poor communities was mainly the result of poor planning. The report also referred to allegations of fraud and corruption against local officials.

'You see how Ramaphosa is,' Joseph Leshomo, a frustrated 51-year- old father said, waving at the sea of shacks that cover a piece of open veld near a gold mine dump, where children play around a garbage dump and rivulets of raw sewage run past homes.

'Nothing has changed here now for a long time,' he says mournfully.

Meanwhile, a group of unemployed looted two shops in the port city of Durban on Wednesday, saying they wanted to attract government's attention to their demands for unemployment assistance, threatened further such action.

Around 90 people were arrested for grabbing fried chickens, drinks and other food from two chain stores in the city centre.

'This is just the tip of the iceberg,' the chairwoman of the South African Unemployed People's Movement (SAUPM) told Johannesburg's The Star newspaper.