Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at township protesters demanding improved services and more jobs.Thousands marched in a show of anger, saying they would escalate demonstrations if local officials from the African National Congress failed to deliver swiftly on promises to provide jobs, housing, and medical care.
Anger was largely directed at local officials according to reports . When Balfour Mayor Lefty Tsotetsi was transported in an armoured vehicle to address hundreds of angry residents, some holding pipes and bats, it was too risky for him to step out of the vehicle.A police convoy drove him to a stadium through barricaded streets where he nervously replied to a list of demands from residents by promising to spend money on education, cut unemployment and build toilets.
They shouted back "when? when? when?" , a question that has often been asked since the ANC came to power at the end of apartheid in 1994.
Protesters behind the looting of two Durban supermarkets have pledged to continue targeting food retailers to highlight their hunger and desperation. KwaZulu-Natal has been hardest hit by the recession in terms of job losses, and the SA Unemployed Peoples' Movement (SAUPM) said today the food snatches would continue until the plight of the jobless was recognised.
Nozipho Mteshana, the chairwoman of SAUPM, said the protesters had done nothing wrong except eat and this was because they were hungry: "This is the frustration that people are experiencing and the financial situation and the continuing job losses do not make things any better for our people."
Provincial police spokesman Captain Khephu Ndlovu said the protesters at both stores had helped themselves to perishable goods, such as roast chicken and chips. Most of them were women.
Sociologist Mary De Haas said these kinds of protests would escalate because people were unhappy as service delivery was slack. "I am not surprised people are disgruntled, they have high expectations, but the government has promised a lot yet people are losing their jobs. This is a symptom of failure of the people elected to the government,"
It is actually the failure of capitalism !!
Commentary and analysis to persuade people to become socialist and to act for themselves, organizing democratically and without leaders, to bring about a world of common ownership and free access. We are solely concerned with building a movement of socialists for socialism. We are not reformists with a programme of policies to patch up capitalism.
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