S.Africa threatens clampdown on violent protests

Thu Jul 23, 2009 1:07pm GMT

[-] Text [+]

By Marius Bosch

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's government on Thursday threatened to crack down on violent protests which erupted this week over jobs and living conditions, posing an early challenge to President Jacob Zuma.

Police fired rubber bullets and teargas on Wednesday at township rioters who were calling for the removal of local officials of the ruling ANC party they accuse of corruption. Scores of protesters have been arrested.

Handling the crisis will be an early test for Zuma, who took office in May after pledging to do more to help the poor. That main plank of the ANC's election manifesto has been constrained by financial woes in Africa's biggest economy.

"The law must take its course. We'll deal ruthlessly with that because we can't allow that. We're not going to allow anyone attaining their goals by illegal means," Cooperative Governance Minister Sicelo Shiceka said on Talk Radio 702.

Police said calm had returned to Siyathemba township, southeast of Johannesburg, after four days of rebellion. Violence flared in various townships after a series of strikes.

The unrest, with scenes reminiscent of attacks against foreigners last year that killed 62 people, have dented South Africa's hope of showing a positive image less than a year before the country hosts the soccer World Cup.

In the Ramaphosa squatter settlement east of Johannesburg, one of the main trouble spots during last year's violence, thousands of residents staged a peaceful protest march.

Watched by heavily armed police, the protesters carried placards. One said: "Poor service delivery is what we hate." Continued...

View article on single page

<p>A protester jumps over a burning road blockade in Siyathemba township outside Balfour July 22, 2009. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko</p>

AFRICA BLOGS

Libya's former leader Muammar Gaddafi (L) welcomes Egypt's former President Hosni Mubarak as he arrives to attend a meeting involving five Arab states in Tripoli June 28, 2010. REUTERS/Stringer

Will 2012 see more strong men of Africa leave office?

There are many reasons for being angry with Africa ’s strong men, whose autocratic ways have thrust some African countries back into the eye of the storm and threatened to undo the democratic gains in other parts of the continent of the past decades. Blog

Kenyan troops patrol the Garrisa airstrip October 18, 2011. Al Qaeda-linked militants prepared to defend a south Somali town on Tuesday from advancing Kenyan and government troops, while a suicide car bomb killed six people in Mogadishu during a visit by a Kenyan minister. REUTERS/Gregory Olando

Operation Somalia: The U.S., Ethiopia and now Kenya

Ethiopia did it five years ago, the Americans a while back. Now Kenya has rolled tanks and troops across its arid frontier into lawless Somalia, in another campaign to stamp out a rag-tag militia of Islamist rebels that has stoked terror throughout the region with threats of strikes. Blog

New recruits belonging to Somalia's al-Qaeda-linked al Shabaab rebel group march during a passing out parade at a military training base in Afgoye, west of the capital Mogadishu February 17, 2011. REUTERS/Feisal Omar

Could Islamist rebels undermine change in Africa?

Creeping from the periphery in Africa’s east and west, Islamist militant groups now pose serious security challenges to key countries and potentially even a threat to the continent’s new success. Blog

A disabled Somali refugee child crawls from their makeshift house at the Ifo camp near Daadab, about 80km (50 miles) from Liboi on the border with Somalia in north-eastern Kenya, February 4, 2009. The growing flow of Somalis fleeing conflict at home has led to overcrowding in refugee camps in neighbouring Kenya and the United Nations expects the influx to continue, an official said. REUTERS/Noor Khamis

The children of Dadaab: Life through the lens

Through my video “The children of Dadaab: Life through the Lens” I wanted to tell the story of the Somali children living in Kenya’s Dadaab. Living in the world’s largest refugee camp, they are the ones bearing the brunt of Africa’s worst famine in sixty years. Blog

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe (R) and his Equatorial Guinea counterpart Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo arrive for the opening of the Harare Agricultural Show, August 31, 2007. President Robert Mugabe on Friday imposed a new law on Zimbabwean businesses banning them from raising wages to keep pace with the world's highest inflation. REUTERS/Philimon Bulawayo

Who among the seven longest serving African leaders will be deposed next?

Several African leaders watching news of the death of Africa ’s longest serving leader are wondering who among them is next and how they will leave office. Blog

Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama jokes with photographers during a news conference in Sao Paulo September 16, 2011. REUTERS/Nacho Doce

Was South Africa right to deny Dalai Lama a visa?

Given that China is South Africa’s biggest trading partner and given the close relationship between Beijing and the ruling African National Congress, it didn’t come as a huge surprise that South Africa was in no hurry to issue a visa to the Dalai Lama. Blog

Latest AlertNet Crises News

Powered by Reuters AlertNet. AlertNet provides news, images and insight from the world's disasters and conflicts and is brought to you by Reuters Foundation.