By Norm Dixon
Television viewers around the world on February 6 may have thought they had accidentally tuned into a program of archival footage from South Africa's apartheid days: florid, bull-necked cops hidden behind menacing yellow armoured "hippos" unloading volley after volley of tear gas, rubber bullets, birdshot and "sharp" ammunition into crowds of protesting township residents; and scenes of dead and wounded South Africans. Sadly, this was not a documentary but that day's events in the "new" South Africa.
Residents of Eldorado Park, Westbury and other townships near Johannesburg launched a mass action campaign to protest local government authorities' cutting off water and electricity services to those behind in their payments. They were also demanding that their townships pay a flat-rate fee for services, in line with that granted to other townships in the region.
Protest organiser and South Western Joint Civics Association (SOWEJOCA) chairperson, Basil Douglas, said at a February 5 press conference that, with unemployment in the greater Eldorado Park area running at almost 80%, people simply did not have money to pay for services.
Douglas said the mass action would be peaceful but added, "past experience has shown that the police will not necessarily act with restraint". Gauteng's safety and security minister, the ANC's Jessie Duarte, condemned the planned demonstrations. The ANC described Douglas as an "unsound anarchist".
The protests were organised after a mass meeting on February 1 resolved to urge workers and students not go to work or school from February 6. Pickets and barricades were set up to prevent kombi taxis, buses or cars leaving the townships. Demonstrations were held outside local government offices.
Police opened fire in Eldorado Park on residents armed with stones and petrol bombs, killing at least three people. They are continuing to deny reports of the death of a seven-year-old. Hundreds were injured.
The establishment press has claimed that the protests were "racial" rather than economic. Certainly, most of the protesters quoted saw their actions through the prism of race.
Under apartheid, as part of the National Party's divide-and-rule strategy, the townships involved in the protests were reserved for Johannesburg's "coloured" population — those of mixed race parentage. The quality of housing and services, woeful compared to those in white areas, were marginally better than in the nearby townships reserved for African workers.
During the struggle against apartheid, residents of townships in the Johannesburg area — African and coloured — boycotted rent, rates and service fees in protest at the illegitimacy of the apartheid-sponsored local government authorities and against the lousy quality of their housing and services. With the election of the ANC in 1994, most believed conditions would improve. The ANC won a majority in the Johannesburg townships formerly reserved for the coloured community.
However, the ANC has failed to redistribute any wealth from those who benefited from the apartheid system. Instead, it has committed itself to "fiscal responsibility", reassuring big business that it will not launch a "spending spree" funded by increased taxes on the rich.
In successive budgets, the government has reduced company taxes and income tax for the wealthy. Without this source of revenue, the government has urged — largely unsuccessfully — communities to again begin to pay their rents, rates and service charges. It has also sought to redistribute funds away from those townships considered better off — if only marginally — to those most in need of improvements.
Residents of formerly African townships have had their debts wiped and are being charged a flat services fee of 45 rand (A$10) a month, whereas townships such as Eldorado Park and Westbury continue to be charged according the amount of water and electricity used. SOWEJOCA charges that the local government has reneged on promises that arrears prior to 1994 would be cancelled. The situation reached crisis point when the authorities began to cut off people's water and power.
This has created the impression among residents that they are being discriminated against in favour of those living in townships formerly reserved for Africans.
This perception is being actively fuelled by the ruling-class press, opportunists and demagogues in the coloured community and political forces, such as the National Party, keen to break the unity of the oppressed. Such a division is possible because of the ANC's economic rationalist policies.
The stay-away was suspended on February 7 after Gauteng local government minister Sicelo Shiceka set up an inquiry to investigate the residents' complaints. On February 8, Gauteng Premier Tokyo Sexwale announced an inquiry into the police actions. Meanwhile Duarte has threatened to prosecute protest Douglas.