From: Montyneill-AT-aol.com
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2002 22:23:10 EST
Subject: AUT: Fwd: Soweto: anti-privatization struggle



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> New activist generation comes of age in Soweto 
[no citation for this piece was included in the version forwarded to me - mn]

> By Arthur Neslen in Johannesburg 
> 
> Something is stirring in Soweto. In the township that became synonymous 
with 
>the struggle against apartheid, a new generation of activists is again 
buzzing 
>with dissent. And with an anti-capitalist convergence planned for the 'Rio 
>+10' summit in Sandton, Johannesburg this August, its potential looks 
awesome. 
> 
> "Genoa is our model," Trevor Ngwame, the chairman of the Soweto Electricity 
>Crisis Committee told Red Pepper, "but that's setting the bar very high for 
us 
>as we are only a third world country. We're hoping for the international 
>anti-capitalist movement to come over - and we're looking at mobilising 
Soweto 
>and Alexandra. 
> 
> SECC has had a lot of practice. For nine months, it organised a boycott of 
>electricity payments to Eskom, a state-owned utility in the throes of 
>pre-privatisation. Around eighty per cent of Sowetans have taken part. 
> 
> When the company cuts people off, SECC illegally reconnects them. Soweto's 
>head "bridger", Bobo, told me "I usually reconnect 15 homes a day. They call 
>us 'popcorns,'" he laughed, "but if we didn't do it, people would live in 
>darkness." 
> 
> The success of the campaign inspired a similar boycott of water payments, 
>and this month, thousands of Sowetans will take to the streets in the first 
>protest since SECC and the umbrella Anti-Privatisation Forum merged to form 
a 
>joint political front last month. 
> 
> Trevor Ngwame said: "We decided to broaden our struggle to include a demand 
>that all basic services in South Africa should be free - water, housing, 
>electricity, healthcare, education and transport." 
> 
> "This is not far-fetched here. We want the government's 'lifeline tariffs' 
>to be made more progressive so that hedonistic use of water - for swimming 
>pools and jacuzzis - is taxed." In Soweto and Alexandra, as many as fifty 
>people will typically share access to one water tap - and one chemical 
toilet. 
> 
> "We want to redistribute wealth," Ngwame continued, "because since 
>liberation, the rich have got richer and the poor poorer, especially the 45 
>per cent of people who're unemployed. The ten per cent who make up the 
rising 
>black middle class have seen a phenomenal increase in wealth but South 
Africa 
>as a whole is a time bomb. The ANC's strategy is leading to violence, unrest 
>and civil war." 
> 
> SECC has been attacked by ANC government ministers, but Trevor Ngwame 
>insists that the group merely galvanised a post facto non-payment. "It was 
not 
>an active boycott, it was happening because people simply couldn't afford to 
>pay. Our strategy was to turn an action of default into a stance of 
defiance." 
> 
> When there is no such defiance, according to Mzwonke Mayekiso - the brother 
>of the anti-apartheid activist, Moses - mercenary solutions become more 
>popular. "Under apartheid, people were encouraged not to steal from their 
>brothers," he said, "and white people are still regarded as the cause of 
>poverty. Because of this, people think the only way to nationalise wealth in 
>South Africa today is to steal." Indeed, in the leafy suburbs of white 
>Johannesburg - and in South Africa's mainstream media - every story is a 
crime 
>story. 
> 
> "What is most worrying," Trevor Ngwame told me, "is that Thabo Mbeki called 
>this the year of the volunteer, and thousands of young people have 
volunteered 
>to be police reservists, working for free. We fear that soon they will be 
>turned against people like ourselves." 
> 
> Would that be a fight a group like SECC could win? "We're positioning 
>ourselves as a catalyst for these struggles but we're hoping that other 
>organisations will surpass us and lead to something bigger. SECC is ahead of 
>its time and it's been successful because the ground is so fertile but I'd 
>like to see a mass workers party that can challenge the ANC." 
> 
> Something like the PT in Brazil? "We're inspired by the PT because it 
>embraces all workers and even lower middle class people who're opposed to 
>privatisation. Also, it allows for debate and includes different 
revolutionary 
>and reformist factions. Personally, I'd belong to a revolutionary faction 
but 
>I don't think we should prejudge the issue." It's a big issue, and a time of 
>movement in the township whose struggles inspire the world. 
> 
> *** 
> Power to the powerful in South Africa--but the people also have power 
> 
> 
> by Patrick Bond 
> 
> 
> `It's a criminal gang,' announced Jeff Radebe, the African National 
Congress 
>(ANC) minister of public enterprises, at a December press conference. He was 
>blasting activists of the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee (SECC) for 
their 
>`Operation Khanyisa!'--reconnect the power!--campaign. Over six months, more 
>than 3,000 families had their electricity supplies illegally switched back 
on, 
>after being left in darkness when they couldn't afford to pay their enormous 
>monthly bills. SECC volunteers risk electrification to do the work, and 
charge 
>their neighbors nothing for the service. 
> 
> Radebe, ironically, is a leading member of the SA Communist Party. In May 
>1999, when Thabo Mbeki was elected president, Radebe was mandated to 
privatize 
>and commercialize Pretoria's largest parastatal companies. 
> 
> The Soweto confrontation was not his first brush with activists who brand 
>him a sell-out. In August, he used similar language to scorn the 2-million 
>member Congress of South African Trade Unions, which embarked on a two-day 
>national strike against the planned privatization of electricity, 
>telecommunications and transport. Mbeki and Radebe were furious because the 
>strike distracted attention from the United Nations World Conference Against 
>Racism, which opened in the South African port city of Durban the following 
>day. 
> 
> The most important South African parastatal, and the fourth largest 
>non-petroleum power company in the world, is the Electricity Supply 
>Commission--still known by its Afrikaans acronym, Eskom. It proudly claims 
to 
>be one of the New South Africa's success stories, having provided 
electricity 
>to more than 300,000 households each year. Yet many tens of thousands cannot 
>afford the full-cost-recovery policy that Pretoria's minerals and energy 
>ministry adopted in 1998. 
> 
> The neoliberal policy of cutting those who cannot afford their bills was 
>especially unfortunate, because virtually all black South Africans were 
denied 
>Eskom's services until the early 1980s due to apartheid racism. Even $100 
>million worth of World Bank loans to Pretoria for expanding Eskom's grid 
>between 1951 and 1966 explicitly left out all black neighborhoods, and is 
one 
>reason that local activists demand reparations from the Bank. The townships 
>were, as a result, perpetually filthy because of coal and wood soot. 
> 
> In spite of the limited success of the roll-out, Eskom has become an even 
>bigger target of dissent. Having fired more than 40,000 of its 85,000 
workers 
>during the early 1990s, thanks to mechanization and overcapacity, the 
utility 
>tried to outsource and corporatize several key operations in recent years, 
>drawing the ire of workers. 
> 
> The metalworkers and mineworkers unions have been told that while 
>electricity generation rights will be sold, Eskom's transmission and 
>distribution will remain state-owned. The South African cabinet is expected 
to 
>approve the restructuring programme in February. But unions remain worried 
>that further commercialization will kill yet more employment, in an economy 
>that has lost more than a million formal sector jobs since the early 1990s. 
> 
> Moreover, Eskom gets sustained heat from environmentalists who complain 
that 
>its massive coal-burning plants still do not have enough sulphur-scrubbing 
>equipment. Alternative renewable energy investments, especially given the 
>country's abundant solar and wind power, have been negligible, compared to 
the 
>tens of millions of dollars Eskom is spending to develop a prototype 
>pebble-bed nuclear reactor, alongside a British partner which has teetered 
on 
>the edge of bankruptcy. 
> 
> The South African utility also relies upon controversial hydropower from 
>Mozambique's huge Cahorra Bassa Dam, whose Portuguese operators claimed in 
>early January that the $0.003 per kiloWatt hour that Eskom was paying 
>represented price extortion (Sowetans pay nearly ten times that amount for 
>each retail kWh). Because the transmission lines from the dam go through 
South 
>Africa's eastern province before returning to the Mozambican capital of 
>Maputo, the huge hydroelectricity consumption of that city's Mozal aluminum 
>furnace comes from Eskom. 
> 
> Mozambique must buy the processed electricity back, in US$ (having sold it 
>to South Africa in the local SA currency, rands). The price is far in excess 
>of what it would pay if it received electricity direct from Cahorra Bassa, 
and 
>didn't have to rely on geographic circumstances forged during the early 
1970s 
>colonial period when Portugal and Pretoria collaborated to keep blacks out 
of 
>power. As a result, Mozambique is considering adding two more dams below 
>Cahorra Bassa on the Zambezi River, which environmentalists are also 
>protesting. 
> 
> Indeed, it is the residual aura of apartheid-era power that so many South 
>African consumers object to. The most prominent critic is Trevor Ngwane, who 
>was formerly an ANC councilor for Soweto, until the ruling party expelled 
him 
>in 1999 for opposing Johannesburg's privatization strategy. Says Ngwane, `We 
>believe that the drive to privatize--by milking more from the poor--seemed 
to 
>instill in Eskom the most anti-social, anti-environmental strategies. We 
also 
>believe that the tide has turned, internationally, against privatization. 
>"Renationalization" is now a popular sentiment.' 
> 
> Ngwane has been central to not only the SECC's success, but to a provincial 
>and national Anti-Privatization Forum that will serve as the main activist 
>hosts for protesters at the upcoming Johannesburg World Summit on 
Sustainable 
>Development. Known as `Rio+10,' the August 26 - September 4 conference will 
be 
>the world's largest-ever conference, with 193 heads of state and 63,000 
>delegates expected. 
> 
> Nearby, people will still be without electricity. Soweto, the 2-million 
>resident township outside Johannesburg, will always be known for its `Spirit 
>of '76' when 1,000 students protesting Afrikaans-language education were 
>killed in the 1976 uprising, which radicalized a generation of 
anti-apartheid 
>activists. In December, Radebe and an allied community network, the SA 
>National Civic Organisation, ventured to the historic Orlando Hall to try to 
>persuade residents that they should put their Eskom payment boycott behind 
>them, and repay half their arrears plus make regular payments. 
> 
> Ngwane says that Operation Khanyisa worked, for last October, Eskom was 
>sufficiently intimidated that it announced it would no longer disconnect 
those 
>who couldn't pay: `People's Power was responsible for Eskom's U-turn. We 
>mobilized tens of thousands of Sowetans in active protests over the past 
year. 
>We established professional and intellectual credibility for our critique of 
>Eskom, even collaborating on a major Wits University study. We demonstrated 
at 
>the houses of the mayor, Amos Masondo, and local councillors, and in the 
>spirit of non-violent civil disobedience, we went so far as to disconnect 
the 
>electricity supplies of the mayor and councillors to give them a taste of 
>their own medicine.' 
> 
> But having been branded `criminals,' Ngwane expects tough ANC repression 
>prior to the potentially embarrassing United Nations meeting. After Eskom 
>partially caved, the SECC were featured last November as popular heroes on 
the 
>front page of the Washington Post and on CNN international television news, 
as 
>well as in the South African media. That, in turn, irritated Radebe, Eskom 
and 
>the neoliberal power-block in Pretoria. Eskom's Jacob Maroga told the Post 
>that `There are clearly customers who don't have the capacity to pay. But 
>there is also this culture of nonpayment in Soweto where customers can 
afford 
>to pay but they prioritize other consumptive spending. We need to deal with 
>that.' 
> 
> `Nonsense,' says Ngwane, `The people who can't pay the high costs of 
>electricity genuinely can't afford to, and Eskom's billing is so erratic 
that 
>no one really trusts the company to tell them what is owed.' He ridicules 
the 
>ANC for having promised a lifeline amount of free electricity in the 2000 
>municipal elections, where Ngwane failed to win a council seat running as an 
>independent. 
> 
> `We are lucky, as South Africa's social movements, to have Rio+10 here in 
>August this year,' he says, promising that a similar humiliation to the 
Durban 
>Anti-Racism conference awaits the government, if they continue privatizing 
and 
>cutting services. 
> 
> But Pretoria watches warily. According to a report in Business Day 
newspaper 
>last August, `Part of the [ANC] strategy--championed by trade and industry 
>minister Alec Erwin, transport minister Dullah Omar and public enterprises 
>minister Jeff Radebe--was to seek to caution Cosatu members against possible 
>hijacking of their strike by outside elements such as those protesting at 
>World Bank and International Monetary Fund meetings.' 
> 
> Ngwane was featured in an April 2000 film popular amongst critics of 
>globalisation--`Two Trevors go to Washington'--where he led street protests 
>against the Bretton Woods Institutions' spring meetings, which 
simultaneously 
>were presided over by that year's chair of the IMF/WB Board of Governors, 
the 
>conservative South African finance minister Trevor Manuel. The dreadlocked 
>Soweto activist smiles. `Radebe's threats are an attempt at divide-and-rule. 
>He is trying to isolate our organisation, and to neutralize Cosatu so as to 
>break the unity of the community and unions. But the boycott of Eskom will 
>continue.' 
> 
> 
> POSSIBLE SIDEBAR: 
> 
> 
> The SECC fights on. 
> 
> 
> Ngwane lists other demands, which he says forms part of a general 
>`decommodification' strategy for basic needs: 
> 
> 
> Eskom must give the SECC and all South Africans the following: 
> 
> 
> . a commitment to halting and reversing privatization and 
commercialization, 
>and to scrap arrears, 
> 
> 
> . the implementation of free electricity promised to us in the 2000 
>municipal elections, 
> 
> 
> . an end to the skewed rates which do not sufficiently subsidize low-income 
>black people, 
> 
> 
> . additional special provisions for vulnerable groups--disabled people, 
>pensioners, people who are HIV+--and 
> 
> 
> . expansion of electrification to all, especially impoverished people in 
>urban slums and rural villages, the vast majority of whom do not have the 
>power that we in Soweto celebrate. 


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