The township that I have been spending two days during the week, Umlazi, has been the site of student rioting since Tuesday. When R picked M and me up on Tuesday at 1:30pm we saw a lot of people gathered outside on the Mangosutho Buthelezi Higheway next to Mangosutho University of Technology, but it wasn't until later that night that I heard it was students protesting about the dearth of lecturers (the new semester started at the beginning of February), the dismissal of three Student Representative Council members, poor facilities, laboratories, and bus/transportation services. Teaching at the university has stopped completely.
The situation grew worse today - the police arrested over one hundred students on the charges of public violence and malicious damage to property. This was after the police fired rubber bullets on the crowds and the students responded by throwing rocks and bottles, and setting roadside debris and tires on fire in the middle of the highway. The local informal trading posts and tuck shops along the road closed down when the police and students began fighting. The police eventually closed the highway off.
Tomorrow morning I'm supposed to go to Umlazi to continue the sewing project but the television news reports haven't said whether the road has been opened. Most of the reports attribute the student action to student members of the Inkatha Freedom Party Youth Brigade. This party, founded by Mangosutho Buthelezi for whom the University in Umlazi is named after, formed in Northern Kwa-Zulu in 1975. It developed in South Africa after the apartheid government banned the African National Congress (ANC) and Pan Africanist Congress in South Africa. Violence between the IFP and ANC occurred in the 1980s, even though they both ostensibly resisted the Apartheid government. KwaZulu-Natal has always been the location for the largest concentration of IFP members, but its membership has waned over the past decade.
Wow, yeah that sucks man! We had riots like this happen quite often over in PNG. In particular, the violence really got bad around election time. I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that the Australian government basically outlawed tribal law while they were in charge, then left the law enforcement system in a shambles when they pulled out of the country in the 70s. In any case, stay safe!
Posted by: Mark | March 07, 2008 at 03:35 AM