JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, August 22, 2002 (ENS) - The first signs of looming conflict at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg are beginning to show even before the summit opens August 26. On Wednesday, 114 former freedom fighters claimed they were teargassed in police cells after being arrested while travelling to a planned protest outside parliament this week.

In addition, 72 landless people and land activists and a journalist were arrested Wednesday as part of the South African government's crackdown on demonstrations during the summit. Those arrested include most of the Gauteng leadership of the national Landless People's Movement including LPM Gauteng Chairperson Maureen Mnisi.

Gauteng Premier Mbazhima Shilowa
(Photo courtesy Office of the Premier)

Shilowa said the Gauteng government is aware of the plight of people in the province who reside in informal settlements or in backrooms and shacks and wish to own homes with full title deeds. He said the government had embarked on a new approach which includes incremental housing and social housing to reduce the huge housing backlog facing the province.

Soweto yard. 50,000 people in Gauteng are homeless, and more than 25 percent of areas in Gauteng do not have adequate water and sanitation. (Photo by Andreas Strebel)

They denied they had teargassed members of the Soldiers Forum who were detained at Johannesburg Central police station.

But publicity secretary of the Soldiers Forum, Lerato Mayela, said outside the station, "You can still smell the teargas, and why have all these paramedics arrived? Some have been injured."

The Soldiers Forum is a group of ex-anti-apartheid guerrilla forces including those from Umkhonto we Sizwe which is the military wing of the ruling African National Congress, the Azanian Peoples Liberation Army and others.

The incidents come as tensions have slowly begun rising with a wide variety of groups expressing anger over a complex registration process for demonstrations during the period of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD).

The tough government stance is fueling tensions and creating alliances among a variety of groupings ranging from disenchanted volunteers at the summit who are protesting their day rate, landless people, workers, those protesting government's stance on HIV and women and high service charges to the poor.

Mayela said, "Freedom of expression as provided for in the constitution has been violated. This is not a true reflection of democracy, we will now demonstrate every day."

Children in Soweto (Photo courtesy Andreas Strebel)

He said members of the Soldiers Forum were arrested at Park Station in Johannesburg as they sat in a designated train coach waiting to embark for Cape Town, where they intended to call attention to their unfair dismissals from the South Africa National Defence Force and the failure of the government to provide pension payments.

The trip had been sponsored by Shosholoza Main Line and its management had allocated a separate coach for the Soldier's Forum. "Despite this, the South African police prevented the train from leaving," Ngwane said.

He said when national Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi finally accepted the Soldiers Forum memorandum, he proceeded to arrest them on "trumped-up" charges of not paying fares.

Mayela said Shosholoza Main Line had been asked to lay a charge against the soldiers but had refused. The soldiers, 98 of whom are men and 16 of whom are women, have embarked on a hunger strike.

He said the soldiers had tried "every channel to protest" starting with the late defence minister Joe Modise, but instead they were charged with sedition. They have planned another protest for September.

"They feel they were unfairly dealt with, they fought in the struggle against apartheid and now they don't even get pensions?" Mayela said.

Ngwane said, "This is the most recent tactic of harassing and intimidating anti-WSSD activists, by government intelligence and security forces. Over the last several days, the National Intelligence Agency has attempted to question several such activists and, in one case, to recruit a member to spy for them.

"All of these cases are indicative of a systematic campaign to control and curtail legitimate public dissent and opposition to government policies," Ngwane said. "It is a clear sign that the South African government is afraid of an informed and active citizenry that practices real democracy."

{Published in cooperation with the African Eye News Service.}