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| Africa: Subsaharan |
| Excerpt from Mbeki’s whistlestop tour of Zulu Hotbeads of Resistence |
| 2004-02-10 |
| EFL ... Mbeki used the tour to warn IFP and ANC supporters against a return to their bloody feuding which killed an estimated 20,000 people in KwaZulu-Natal and elsewhere in the early 1990s. Whatever the real motives of the tour, Mbeki was left in no doubt as to how strong a feeling of unfulfilled expectations runs through the country’s black majority even as his party prepares to celebrate its successes in guiding post-apartheid development. In three days of criss-crossing South Africa’s most populous province with some 9.4 million people, he was confronted by people voicing the concerns of ordinary South Africans plagued by violent crime, rampant rape and HIV/AIDS, and unemployment. At his final imbizo in Gamalakhe on the Natal south coast, a former prisoner handed Mbeki a thick volume detailing his complaints against corruption in the jails. The huge crowd was moved to tears when the author described one incident when a male prisoner was left unattended to die of piles after being repeatedly sodomized by fellow inmates. A woman in the crowd complained she had been turned away from police stations when she reported the rape of her 6-year-old daughter by a man she identified. Mbeki’s Security and Safety Minister Charles Nqakula, a key cabinet minister traveling with the president and taking turns to field questions was outraged. "A man who rapes is no different from a dog," he said. "A dog stays in a cage. A man who rapes will also be kept in a cage. A policeman who dismisses complaints of rape is equally guilty," he added, to the joy of tearful women in the crowd. Nice words. What was the end result of the action taken? Yes, I’m not kidding, the action taken. No I am serious. Step laughing..... South Africa has probably the highest rate of rape in the world. Mbeki went to great lengths to shed his image of a dour public speaker and even won a few standing ovations... But Mbeki would not be drawn on some issues. Throughout the tour he hardly mentioned the subject of HIV/AIDS, which he has been accused of paying little attention to although South Africa is the most afflicted country in the world. A visit to a hospital with a large HIV/AIDS ward was dropped from his schedule at the last minute because of bad weather. |
| Posted by:Super Hose |
| #2 Not to mention the worlds highest rate of murder and violent crime. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2004-2-10 7:41:24 PM |
| #1 Although it is arguably one of the best places to live on the continent, South Africa has probably the highest rate of rape in the world. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-2-10 4:51:15 PM |