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Slum protesters march on Earth summit
Johannesburg, Aug 31: Thousands of slum-dwellers marched on the Earth Summit on Saturday, protesting about issues from AIDS to globalisation and marshalled by heavily armed police who feared violence might upstage the U.N. meeting
Johannesburg, Aug 31: Thousands of slum-dwellers marched on the Earth Summit on Saturday, protesting about issues from AIDS to globalisation and marshalled by heavily armed police who feared violence might upstage the U.N. meeting.
Singing apartheid-era songs, a rainbow coalition of at least 10,000 anti-government leftists marched to Johannesburg's plush Sandton convention center from the shanty township of Alexandra -- an eight-km (five-mile) walk that South African President Thabo Mbeki said symbolised a "global apartheid" between rich and poor.
"Hello Sandton!...It's a pity you're barricaded, preventing us from coming in and showing you the real world!" organizer Virginia Setshedi yelled across the razor wire at the building.
Seven hours in, there was no was sign of trouble by the time the rally began to break up following speeches outside the summit center. Police revised down estimates of numbers but the turnout was less than some expected. But it was still one of the biggest protests since the end of white minority rule in 1994.
Guarded by police, armored vehicles, helicopters, razor wire and concrete barriers, delegates from almost 200 countries kept up talks inside the building, trying to break a deadlock on an ambitious plan to halve poverty and protect the environment.
"Osama bin Laden -- Bomb Sandton," "Factory Gases and Waste are Killing," "Hands Off Iraq," "Globalise the Intifada," "Stop Thabo Mbeki's AIDS genocide" or "Bush, you belong in the Bush" were among banners and T-shirts.
South Africa deployed thousands of police to avert any repeat of the mayhem that has marred international meetings in Seattle, Prague, Genoa and elsewhere. The U.N. meeting is meant to showcase the new South Africa and put paid to international memories of violence between white police and black protesters.
Bureau Report
"Hello Sandton!...It's a pity you're barricaded, preventing us from coming in and showing you the real world!" organizer Virginia Setshedi yelled across the razor wire at the building.
Seven hours in, there was no was sign of trouble by the time the rally began to break up following speeches outside the summit center. Police revised down estimates of numbers but the turnout was less than some expected. But it was still one of the biggest protests since the end of white minority rule in 1994.
Guarded by police, armored vehicles, helicopters, razor wire and concrete barriers, delegates from almost 200 countries kept up talks inside the building, trying to break a deadlock on an ambitious plan to halve poverty and protect the environment.
"Osama bin Laden -- Bomb Sandton," "Factory Gases and Waste are Killing," "Hands Off Iraq," "Globalise the Intifada," "Stop Thabo Mbeki's AIDS genocide" or "Bush, you belong in the Bush" were among banners and T-shirts.
South Africa deployed thousands of police to avert any repeat of the mayhem that has marred international meetings in Seattle, Prague, Genoa and elsewhere. The U.N. meeting is meant to showcase the new South Africa and put paid to international memories of violence between white police and black protesters.
Bureau Report