Black local govt suffers under black attacks

Press, 15 July 1985, Page 37

Black local govt suffers under black attacks

By

JAMES SMITH

of Associated Press (through NZPA) Johannesburg Black local government, a cornerstone of the white Government’s race policy, is collapsing in many areas as angry black rioters attack the nearest symbol of apartheid.

The disintegration of town and village councils often overlooked amid daily killings and arson, is seen by both supporters and foes as one of the most farreaching consequences of nearly a year of unrest in black townships. More than 400 blacks have been killed. About 250 members of the Government-backed councils have resigned as residents have made at least 118 violent attacks on members, their homes and businesses. The Government says the African National Congress, fighting from exile for black-majority rule, is behind the attacks in an attempt to make the townships “ungovernable.” Some councillors have hired vigilantes to attack members of anti-Govern-ment civic associations. Sheena Duncan, president of the Black Sash anti-apart-heid organisation, says parts of South Africa have reached "total chaos, a total breakdown in law and order.”

In about six townships where entire councils have resigned, local Government has fallen back into the laps of white administration boards. Last month, the Government adopted a law empowering the boards to resume control over townships without councils so that garbage collection, water and other services could continue.

“Business Day,” an independent financial daily, said in an editorial that the law is "cogent evidence that Government anticipate a real risk that the whole structure of black local government could break down through the process of intimidation.

“The truth is that arson and murder applied against blacks who might be regarded by radicals as collaborationists is the first effective tactic devised by black radicals over all the years that they have been engaged in active resistance,” the newspaper said. Apartheid foes find the roots of the crisis in the creation of local black bodies without giving national political rights to the country’s 24 million

blacks. Blacks are regarded as citizens of 10 tribal homelands, with rights there rather than in South Africa. But half the nation’s blacks live outside the homelands, in segregated townships near urban centres. To run those townships, the Government set up local authorities with limited powers. Black councils were given control over new housing, electricity, water, sewerage and other day-to-day matters. But they have little power to raise money beyond collecting rents from township dwellers — far too little income to meet demands for services. Elections for new councils in late 1982 were heavily boycotted, with opponents saying blacks should reject a system imposed on them without their consent. The Government says the turnout averaged 21 per cent, but boycotting groups say it was far lower. With services deteriorating and reports of corruption rampant, council members were among the first targets of rioters last September, along with black policeman, also regarded as traitors in the struggle for black rights. Five councillors have been killed, sometimes in gruesome assaults in which victims were doused with petrol and set alight. Many councillors’ homes are guarded 24 hours a day by the police, and in some areas they have moved into compounds surrounded by barbed wire.

At least 57 of 432 councillors have resigned from 32 new local authorities created in 1982. Out of another 195 older community councils, formed in the 19705, 73 councils have had resignations totalling 206 members, said the Minister of Co-operation and Development, Dr Gerrit Viljoen, in Parliament last month.

“It’s quite serious,” conceded Tom Boya, Mayor of Daveyton township, east of Johannesburg, and chairman of the East Rand Urban Council’s Association. “We have almost a quarter of our councillors having resigned,” he said. “At the moment, the East Rand (development) Board is running the show, which is really unfortunate. People have been robbed of a chance to make their own decisions,” he said. When the whole council resigned in Ratanda town-

ship, saying the people preferred the leadership of the rival civic association, “it meant that everything had to come to a standstill. You couldn’t get a truck to do any work,” said Mr Boya, whose home in Daveyton sustained thousands of dollars in damage in a firebomb attack. Mr Boya said lack of financing was a central problem. Black townships have virtually no business or industry tax base and must rely on rents for income while *white areas could tax business for municipal services, he said. “The problems encountered are such that we have found it difficult to exercise our duties as councillors. We just cannot act . . . we want to talk to the Government,” Mr Boya wrote in a letter to Dr Viljoen in May. “We want to restore our dented image.” A possible solution, he said, lay in a new plan to create regional service councils, in which members from segregated black, white, Asian and Coloured councils would sit on boards for whole urban areas. The regional councils, seen as a form of urban power sharing, would be funded by a new tax on employers to help redistribute income to poorer areas. Mr Peter Soal, member of Parliament for the opposition Progressive Federal Party, said: “The fatal flaw in that system is that (members) are going to come from apartheid institutions, from black town councils, from Indian management committees. They’ve already been rejected by their communities. “The concept is good, but it always gets fouled up with racial exclusivity. “It’s all very well to have a mayor with a Mercedes, but they’ve got nothing to raise money on,” Mr Soal said of the black councils. Emson Banda, a community leader in Langa township, near Uitenhage, where the council has resigned, said residents were setting up street and area committees to run local affairs, and barely noticed the demise of the council. "The police don’t like it, they’ve got no job now. But we’ve got our own Government. That’s the language we are using,” he said. The Government has banned meetings until the end of the year by 60 organisations, many of them civic associations set up as rivals to the councils.