http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=313154&area=/insight/insight__editorials/

Red alert

06 July 2007 07:18
If the wealth-gap is the most dangerous fault line in South African society, then service delivery protests are a seismograph charting the anger of desperate people whose government is failing them.

However you count the protests, the indicators are now in the red.

This week angry residents at Deneysville in the Free State killed an ANC councillor, an indication that the protests are increasing not only in number, but also in violence.

ANC leaders blamed the opposition United Democratic Movement for stoking resentment, but that was possible only because the fuel of bitterness and frustration was running so deep.

Giving a voice
http://www.witness.co.za/default.asp?myAction=detail&myRef=53121&myCat=opinion

A crucial task of the media in a democratic society is to publicise the plight of ordinary citizens faced with the unreasonable exercise of power, whether by government or business. This week's story in The Witness putting the other side of the saga involving the demolition in Pietermaritzburg of Akoo's Flats and a neighbouring house is a case in point.

The evicted tenants emphasised that while they might be poor, they are not stupid. They are also capable of reading the newspaper and, indeed, contributing to it. As a result, a more rounded and complete picture of events has now been offered. It is clear that at least some of the occupants of the two buildings were subjected to a forced removal that belonged more to the apartheid era than to a democracy and had little respect for people's human rights and dignity.