A handful of demonstrators showed up at ”mass pickets” against American President George Bush on Friday, with 18 people attending the event in Johannesburg and nine in Pretoria.
The demonstrators waved posters and sang struggle songs despite the low turnout.
Politicians said the pickets, held under the banner of the SA Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu), sought to garner support for mass protests against Bush.
The United States president would, for the first time in his presidency, visit Botswana, Uganda, Nigerian, Senegal and South Africa during his African tour. The trip would start on Monday and end on Friday.
The demonstrators were not against the visit, but the ”dangerous policies” of the Bush administration, SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande said in Johannesburg.
”We are not opposed to the visit. Our government has bilateral relations with the United States,” Nzimande said. ”We want to tell Bush about the dangerous activities of his administration.”
Vincent Vena, the national campaigns coordinator of the Friends of the Cuban Society (Focus), said: ”To us, weapons of mass destruction that must be removed is poverty.”
Focus is a South African organisation that is offering the Cuban people solidarity.
”We know that he is here [South Africa] to represent his big capitalists. Our message to Bush is that he must stop his arrogance,” Vela said.
He, Nzimande and the few demonstrators lined up along River Street in front of the US Consulate in Killarney, north of Johannesburg, holding posters and singing struggle songs.
Some of the posters read ”empty warhead leave Africa”, ”time for regime change in USA”, ”Bush is a war criminal”, ”No Bush war in Africa” and ”Bush is a threat to world peace”.
In Pretoria, the nine demonstrators seemed in high spirits despite being outnumbered by the media and police. The group toyi-toyied energetically while chanting slogans on the United States embassy lawn.
They carried placards reading ”Bush leave our gold and platinum alone”, ”Cowboy Bush leave Cuba alone”, and ”Africans for peace, Bush for war”.
Cosatu northern region secretary Jan Tsiane said the protest was held to express displeasure with US foreign policy.
”We are very unhappy about the aggressive policies of the Bush administration as far as foreign sovereign countries are concerned,” he said.
Cosatu and the SACP have organised pickets for next Wednesday to coincide with Bush’s meeting with President Thabo Mbeki.
Tsiane said the upcoming visit was a good thing in the sense that it could boost foreign investment in South Africa. ”But that does not stop us from airing our views”.
In a statement earlier this week, Cosatu invited the media to witness a ”mass picket” planned for between noon and 3pm on Friday. By 1:40pm all nine demonstrators had left.
Tsiane said he was not disappointed at the turnout. The low number was understandable considering that Cosatu supporters were at work, he said.
In an earlier statement, the federation said the protest was against US foreign policy specifically on Cuba, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Palestine. Cosatu was also concerned about American economic policies, which it felt left poor countries behind.
Furthermore, Cosatu said it feared the US government was pressurising other countries to pass ”undemocratic and dangerous” anti-terrorism laws.
At a news conference earlier in the day, Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma was asked how the South African government regarded the protests planned to coincide with Bush’s visit.
She replied: ”Both the US and South Africa say they are committed to free association, freedom of speech, human rights and democracy.”
Demonstrations were part of the milieu of democracy, as long as they were peaceful and legal, the minister said.
”The people of this country have that right — they fought for it and they should enjoy it.”
The demonstration would be part of other pickets that are expected to take place next week. The protests would coincide with a public function that Bush would attend and address. – Sapa