ANC urges calm after Gauteng service-delivery protests

KARABO KEEPILE JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA - Mar 11 2010 12:34

By mid-morning on Thursday, five metro police cars were lined up on Impala Road in Dobsonville, Soweto, keeping a watchful eye where protests had erupted at about 8am.

Taxi marshal Lucky Mokwena told the Mail & Guardian he watched protesters who had taken to the streets demanding RDP houses hours earlier: "They were burning tyres and protesting for houses. They say they have been waiting since 1994."

Burnt tyres lay scattered at an intersection on Impala Road at 11am on Thursday. Angry residents -- whom the M&G understands were from Zola, Emdeni and Chiawelo in Soweto -- said they would be back the following day.

Thursday morning's outburst of community anger over what residents say is the municipality's continued failures of service delivery followed Wednesday's protests in the same area.

It has been a torrid week of community action in Gauteng. Protests also flared in:

Mamelodi and Bronkhorstspruit (on Monday);

Brits and Oukasie (Tuesday); and

Reiger Park and Daveyton on the East Rand, Ennerdale (Johannesburg South), Protea Glen in Soweto, Ramaphosa informal settlement, Attridgeville and Mamelodi in Pretoria )on Thursday morning.

On Thursday, the ANC in Gauteng said, "It seems there is a systematic pattern and that the protests are coordinated with a clear objective to destabilise government."

In a statement issued late on Thursday morning, the party appealed "to communities to remain calm [and] exercise patience and tolerance".

"The ANC will send a team of leaders to speak to the people about their concerns and determine appropriate measures to resolve the problems," the statement said.

"The protests do not mean that people are disillusioned with the ANC government, but are raising issues for government to speed up change and succeed," the party said in the same statement. -- Additional reporting by Tarryn Harbour and Lisa Steyn

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