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Mixed-race protesters riot in South Africa
February 6, 1997
Web posted at: 7:00 p.m. EST (0000 GMT)In this story:
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (CNN) -- Images of South Africa's bitter past returned Thursday as rioters blocked roads, looted a gas station and fought running battles with police to protest discrimination.
But those who used to fight the government now run it, and these protesters were mainly poor people of mixed race descent who say they have been unfairly treated by the new black leaders.
Protesters riot in South Africa
1.5M/27 sec. QuickTime movie
A seven-year-old boy was reported shot to death as police fought the protesters rioting over water and electricity bills in Johannesburg's mixed-race suburbs.
A visibly distraught Chantal Williams, a resident of the Eldorado Park suburb which bore much of the brunt of Thursday's violence, told national television her young brother was killed.
"A white policeman and a black policeman opened fire and shot Trevor Williams," his sister said. "He is seven years old... Trevor Williams is dead."
There were unconfirmed reports that four people died in the rioting, and a trauma center in Eldorado Park reported that more than 100 people treated for injuries, most of them hit by birdshot, rubber bullets and live ammunition fired by police.
A police spokesman said that 14 officers were also injured.
Organizers of Thursday's protests say that black leaders allow blacks to avoid paying rent and utility bills, but cut off the services of mixed-race customers who fail to pay.
Previous efforts to stir unrest have failed, but Thursday's protests were the largest and most violent in mixed-race settlements since President Nelson Mandela's black-led African National Congress came to power in 1994.
'We are tired of waiting'
"We are tired of waiting," said Goodwin Aldren, a community leader. "The government has called us the children of adultery and they ignore us, but we are South Africans with rights."
"We're paying for rotten houses," said Rashid Evans, one of the protest organizers. "We're not black enough and we're not white enough."
The protesters were seeking to shut down public transport and close shops and schools in their townships. Organizers had promised peaceful demonstrations, but anger spilled out with the dawn as flaming mounds of tires, tree limbs and road signs were used to block roads.
The protesters first threw bottles and stones but later resorted to gunfire. Unrest continued through the day and intensified in the late afternoon as police opened fire on rioters who threw stones and fired handguns.
A crowd of protesters looted a gas station in Eldorado Park, carrying off armfuls of beer and food until scores of police in armored vehicles opened fire with buckshot and tear gas.
Rioters fire-bombed one of the armored vehicles and a policeman clambered out with his clothing on fire.
Police, army cordon off the area
Journalists saw crowds stop taxis and force them back, and one van was smashed and had its door ripped off as passengers fled. A police helicopter intervened, descending on the scene until its down-draft forced people away.
Police and military units cordoned off the area, which is southwest of the Johannesburg business district, with razor wire and used rubber bullets and buckshot to break up stone-throwing mobs.
Late Thursday, the organizers called off the protest after authorities promised that a task force would be appointed to investigate their complaints.
Mixed-race people, labeled as colored under apartheid, have long been caught between more powerful forces in South Africa. They were poor stepchildren to whites under apartheid who gave them their own chamber of Parliament, but little real power.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
Related stories:
- South Africa's Truth Commission travels to hear apartheid abuses - December 27, 1996
- S. African apartheid assassin jailed for life - October 30, 1996
- Police implicate former president in apartheid-era assassinations - October 21, 1996
- 6 go free in apartheid-era murder trial - October 10, 1996
Related sites:
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- Commission of Truth and Reconciliation
- African National Congress
- Main Street South Africa
- Mail & Guardian (South African newspaper)
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