CNS STORY: Anti-poverty protests call attention to growing South African needs

POVERTY-PROTESTS Jul-31-2009 (580 words) xxxi

Anti-poverty protests call attention to growing South African needs

By Bronwen Dachs
Catholic News Service

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (CNS) -- Violent anti-poverty protests in South Africa highlight the urgent need to improve public services, a Catholic official said.

The protests, which began in mid-July in townships around Johannesburg, "are manifestations of frustration" over a lack of basic services such as water and electricity, as well as poor housing conditions, said Dominican Father Mike Deeb, director of the justice and peace department of the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference.

Up to 200 people have been arrested for setting fire to buildings, stoning vehicles and looting shops in protests in South Africa's Gauteng, Mapumalanga, North-West and Western Cape provinces.

"It is frightening to see the depth of people's anger," Father Deeb said, noting that people have placed a huge demand on the government of President Jacob Zuma, who was elected in April, "to show that it is serious about addressing the concerns" of the poor.

"(South Africa) needs better management to stop the corruption that is rife at all levels," he said in a July 29 telephone interview from Pretoria.

While the government has built 2.8 million houses and expanded access to clean water and electricity in the 15 years since the end of apartheid, more than 1 million families still live in shacks without power and many households share a single water tap. Apartheid was South Africa's official policy of strict racial segregation and white minority rule for nearly 50 years.

At a July 23 memorial service for anti-apartheid activists in a Cape Town Catholic church, retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu lamented the lack of basic services and said greed and corruption were plaguing the government.

"There are levels of poverty in this country that are completely unacceptable," the Nobel laureate said, according to the Cape Times newspaper.

All those involved in the struggle against apartheid "paid a very heavy price. And for what? So some of us can have three motor cars?" Archbishop Tutu said.

Father Deeb warned that the anger sparking the protests could be turned against foreigners in a repeat of the xenophobic attacks across the country in May 2008 in which more than 60 people were killed.

South Africa is host to millions of people from other African countries, mostly Zimbabweans who have fled the economic crisis at home.

"This is a challenge to us as a church to do more community building, promoting an awareness that we are all brothers and sisters, and we are all migrants or children of migrants," Father Deeb said.

Official figures put unemployment in South Africa at 23.5 percent but it is believed to be much higher.

"With competition for livelihood, there is always scapegoating and it's often those seen as outsiders who are targeted," Father Deeb said.

South Africa is facing its first recession since 1994 and the government is reporting more than 200,000 jobs lost this year. "It will require a delicate balancing act for the government to meet the costs of the services it needs to provide," Father Deeb said.

In July the Pretoria-based justice and peace department held its second training course this year for people from 21 dioceses in South Africa, Botswana and Swaziland to provide them with the skills to start justice and peace groups. Father Deeb said the department's goal is for every parish in the region to have a justice and peace group.

"We want to get these groups working effectively so that they are able to respond to the needs in their communities," he said.

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