Echoes of apartheid erupt in townships

HAMMARSDALE - The scenes were reminiscent of apartheid-era South Africa: rubber bullets, sirens, the acrid smoke of burning tyres and police charges on protesters.

Townships in the Republic are seething, presenting new President Jacob Zuma with a massive challenge to improve living conditions and restore security.

Zuma is pleading for more time.

At a township stadium rally on his home turf in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, Zuma acknowledged that the Government had fallen short.

He told the audience: "The troubles we are seeing in our townships prove to us that there is much work to do and much to repair. But there must not be violence between us. Let us work together!"

The response to his speech was muted, and the African National Congress organisers seemed disappointed at the turnout of about 3000 people.

Commentators say South Africa is sitting on a social time bomb.

Government damage-limitation efforts so far seem focused on preventing an explosion before next year's World Cup rather than improving delivery of services.

Hammarsdale resident Nozipho Mbambo, 24, who in common with nearly two-thirds of the population voted ANC on April 22, said the Government was out of touch.

"We vote ANC because you must," explained the single mother who lives with her parents. "They are like the royal family. Zuma is a Zulu, so there was no question for me. But that does not mean I am happy. Firstly, I would like a job."

Semi-rural Hammarsdale has few shacks and widespread electricity coverage. But Mbambo says residents have to burn their own litter because it is never collected. Transport is scarce and crime is bad.

"It is dangerous, so you can't go out at night. There are rats that bite the children. Last month armed robbers held up worshippers during a church service."

She said she understood restive compatriots in squatter camps. Her uncle lives in Diepsloot, near Johannesburg.

"He moved there from Alexandra because President Thabo Mbeki was promising him a house. That was eight years ago. He is a man in his 60s and he has to do his business in a bucket.

Now the local councillors have told them to move again, to a wasteland near Pretoria, to make way for a new sewerage pipe. I support all those who are rioting now."

Across South Africa's 283 municipalities, similar incidents have caused a crescendo of rage in the past month. Protesters have brandished placards saying life was better under white rule. Ethiopians and Pakistanis in Balfour, within the province of Mpumalanga, have taken refuge outside a police station, fearing a repeat of last year's xenophobic attacks which left 100,000 people homeless and saw 63 killings.

Fifteen years after the first all-race elections, the situation is dire, whichever set of statistics you look at. Hammarsdale has a 33 per cent HIV infection rate and antiretroviral drugs recently ran out.

This week 150,000 municipal workers will go on strike and petrol pumps may run dry if chemical industry workers also go ahead with planned industrial action.

The disputes do not have astronomical demands. The recent construction industry strike - which halted World Cup projects for a week - centred on a modest pay increase for 50,000 workers, from 14 rands per hour ($2.74) to 15.68 rands. It was finally awarded by an industry in full boom.

The South African wealth gap is deepening. Even as squatter camp residents were rioting, the new communications and education ministers were out buying cars. Their spokesmen said they were "obeying the rules" by purchasing three BMWs and a Range Rover for a total of 4.1 million rands.

The government's clumsy handling of the present crisis adds to the bitterness. After, in effect, ignoring last year's xenophobic violence, this time the ANC has deployed the hitherto unknown Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Sicelo Shiceka, to deal with the issue.

But he is firing in all the wrong directions, suggesting "it is normal for people to take to the streets" because "we are legitimate government and their protests mean they understand this". He told a radio station that people with complaints should ring Zuma's new "presidential hotline", but enquiries revealed the people will have to wait until September, when it comes into service.

The Government acknowledges the 2.6 million homes it has built since 1994 are still 2.1 million short of its target. Shiceka admits that local authorities are chaotically run, but blames the councillors' lack of experience.

Ordinary South Africans are very clear: service delivery failures are the result of ANC nepotism, comrades being assigned to positions for which they are not qualified.

Analyst Aubrey Matshiqi says this explains why service delivery protests take place outside election time: "There was a lull during the election campaign period because some of the protest leaders hoped to be on ANC election lists or had already succeeded in their quest to be on them."

- OBSERVER