Anger boils over in Johannesburg slums

Matchbox houses composed from corrugated metal, scrap wood, cardboard, and sometimes cement similar to these shacks in the Kliptown community south of Johannesburg make up the hundreds of neglected squatter camps and informal settlements that more than 1 million South Africans call home. (Olesia Plokhii photo)

Olesia Plokhii is a Boston-based freelance journalist currently living in Soweto, South Africa.

By Olesia Plokhii

JOHANNESBURG -- Frustration has turned into looting and violence for many of South Africa’s poorest citizens more than half a century after an unfulfilled edict led by the African National Congress to abolish all ghettos.

In an unusual flurry of strikes in South Africa this season, ranging from those organized by doctors who wouldn’t operate, to construction workers who threatened the erection of several 2010 World Cup stadiums, to municipal workers who halted policing, garbage removal, and water flow for seven days recently, the most violent and urgent of the protests have been waged by squatter camp residents angry at the government for a lack of service delivery and at local councilors who continue to offer empty promises.

Those empty promises come in the form of intermittent electricity, little to no healthcare, scarce running water, limited access to education, and inadequate housing. With more than 1 million people living in tin shacks and squalid conditions in the nation that represents the epitome of African development, hundreds of discouraged residents have decided to put their words aside in exchange for a louder negotiating tool -- weapons.

Protests that began peaceful with the singing of songs and congregation of residents July 22 ended with stone-throwing, arson, and the firing of rubber bullets by police in Balfour, a squatter camp in the northern Mpumalanga Province near Pretoria where local media reported the attacks as xenophobic after residents vandalized shops belonging to Ethiopian, Zimbabwean, and Namibian foreign nationals who were subsequently chased out of the area and remained in protected police custody a week afterward.

Throughout July, similar scenes in Thokoza and Diepsloot, both near Johannesburg, and other rural areas surrounding major South African metropolitans such as Durban and Cape Town roused the spotlight of national media, law enforcement, and government agencies. President Jacob Zuma has even put together a task force to investigate the recent spate of protests and on Tuesday visited Balfour to speak to disgruntled residents.

But Thulani Madondo, a resident of Kliptown, the squatter camp that was made famous in 1955 for the signing of the bipartisan Freedom Charter that advocated for the abolishment of ghettos and whose inhabitants rioted against a lack of service delivery in 2007 only to be met by rubber bullets, said there is nothing to investigate -- except the unethical mismanagement of government funds.

“One thing I know for sure is that this country has a lot of money, but it’s not wisely spent. They spend the money changing street signs, giving bonuses to ministers, and building an underground parking lot for an underutilized hotel,” said 27-year-old Madondo of the new Soweto Hotel, built jarringly across from Kliptown’s mounting heaps of garbage, public toilets, and dilapidated shacks. “But they cant build us new houses?”

Madondo, who recently embarked on an independent Kliptown redevelopment project because he is tired of waiting for government assistance, said that in the rare case that the hundreds of South African slums were redeveloped by municipal agencies such as the Gauteng Department of Housing, government-subsidized housing would be laced with stipulations and remain too expensive for most squatter camp residents -- an overwhelming majority of whom are unemployed and survive on less than $20 a day while South Africa’s gross domestic product remains the continent’s highest.

Across a small river that runs behind the Kliptown squatter camp southwest of Johannesburg, a pack of swine has managed to carve out a comfortable existence surrounded by mounds of garbage -- both a familiar sight and smell in the 45,000-person slum.

“These housing projects, if they ever see the light of day, will still be too expensive for the people who want to live there,” Madondo said. “And those who do live there will be chased out once they have nothing left to pay.”

According to Municipal IQ, an independent agency that monitors municipal services, the number of protests waged this year over poor public service is 24. Since it’s only halfway through the year, the number of protests is on track to far eclipse last year’s figure of 27.

The protests, turning increasingly more violent and desperate, come at a crucial time for Zuma and his administration, whose main support came from blue-collar workers, farmers, and squatter camp residents such as Madondo, counting on a populist Zuma to fulfill lofty campaign promises of jobs and housing for all in just a matter of years.

“He made impractical promises that he can’t fill,” Madondo irritably said. “As far as I’m concerned, [the service delivery protests represent] the people fighting back. By voting for Zuma, the people have done theirs. Now it’s time for the president to do his.”

Even with the country facing its first recession since democratic elections in 1994 and suffering from a 23.6 percent unemployment rate, Madondo refuses to believe the Zuma administration’s hands may be justifiably tied.

“I know this administration wants to pride itself on having a surplus of money, but still, [we] have people living like animals; I’d rather run a government on a deficit and make sure everyone is fed.”

To learn how you can blog for Passport, e-mail Lydia Rebac at lrebac@globe.com