ANC angered by plan to build 'apartheid wall'

The Guardian (U.K.) ^ | 06/29/2002 | Mungo Soggot

[Pokey78]

A racially charged row has erupted over plans for an "apartheid Berlin Wall" outside Cape Town, where residents want to fence off a poor black residential area from a predominantly white one.

The wall is due to be built in Kraaifontein, a working class area between Cape Town and the university town of Stellenbosch. Residents want the 340-metre (1,115-foot) wall to separate their largely white community from about 8,500 low-cost houses being built in neighbouring Wallacedene.

Mcebisi Skwatsha of the African National Congress calls the wall "appalling, wrong and immoral", and has vowed to try to get its construction blocked by the courts.

Members of the Democratic Alliance (DA) who approved the plan at a local council meeting say the residents who want the wall are not all white and are merely worried about security and noise from a nearby motorway.

The DA has a strong following from whites throughout South Africa and among the coloured electorate in the Cape.

ANC officials have reportedly vowed to launch a campaign of mass action over the issue. Mr Skwatsha said: "The fact that they [the DA] want to introduce an electric fence shows just exactly what they think of poor black people.

"Tony Leon [the DA national leader] and the Democratic Alliance have finally exposed their rotten racist face with this decision."

But the DA has hit back, accusing the ANC of trying to stir up racial tension.

Councillor Brian Watkyns said it was untrue that the wall was being built to separate black and white communities.

"The Wallacedene area is made up of members of a number of different race groups and the request for the construction of the short wall is not racist," he said.

"The city of Cape Town is building 8,500 houses for poor black, coloured and white people in the area," he added.

"We will not allow the ANC to derail a positive initiative by trying to stir up unnecessary racial tension. The ANC is trying to make a mountain range out of a mere wall - and all for cheap, short-term political expediency."

The controversy comes at a particularly bad time for the DA. The alliance, the official opposition in the national parliament, was formed by a merger of the predominantly white liberal Democratic party and the New National party, the successor to the National party, which ruled the racially divided South Africa from 1948 to 1994.

The alliance has crumbled because the two parties found it impossible to work together. But it will not be able to split formally until the implementation of new legislation allowing politicians to cross the floor of parliament.

Extraordinarily, since the breakdown of the alliance, the New National party has forged an agreement with the ANC, which now governs the Western Cape, and has been promised cabinet posts.

The Democratic Alliance is regularly accused of being racist. Its deal with the New National party is regarded as a miscalculation, because party stalwarts balked at the idea of cooperation with the architects of apartheid.

[Pearls Before Swine]

Another case of "all your security are our," if you get my drift.

[Ronin]

Gee no wonder the ANC is pissed. How are the poor rapists, murderers and assorted robbers going to get to work if they build that fence?

It will add hours to their daily commute.