Some of the protests have begun to set­tle down in South Africa. Ear­lier this week, vio­lent protests erupted after peo­ple took to the streets to protest the lack of basic ser­vices many have in the coun­try. Many years after apartheid ended, many peo­ple still don’t have access to water or decent hous­ing in South Africa.

From Reuters writ­ten by Mar­ius Bosch we read of the gov­ern­ments response and one peace­ful protest that hap­pened Wednesday.

South Africa’s gov­ern­ment on Thurs­day threat­ened to crack down on vio­lent protests which erupted this week over jobs and liv­ing con­di­tions, pos­ing an early chal­lenge to Pres­i­dent Jacob Zuma.

Police fired rub­ber bul­lets and tear­gas on Wednes­day at town­ship riot­ers who were call­ing for the removal of local offi­cials of the rul­ing ANC party they accuse of cor­rup­tion. Scores of pro­test­ers have been arrested.
…

Police said calm had returned to Siy­ath­emba town­ship, south­east of Johan­nes­burg, after four days of rebel­lion. Vio­lence flared in var­i­ous town­ships after a series of strikes.

The unrest, with scenes rem­i­nis­cent of attacks against for­eign­ers last year that killed 62 peo­ple, have dented South Africa’s hope of show­ing a pos­i­tive image less than a year before the coun­try hosts the soc­cer World Cup.

In the Ramaphosa squat­ter set­tle­ment east of Johan­nes­burg, one of the main trou­ble spots dur­ing last year’s vio­lence, thou­sands of res­i­dents staged a peace­ful protest march.

Watched by heav­ily armed police, the pro­test­ers car­ried plac­ards. One said: “Poor ser­vice deliv­ery is what we hate.”

Many South Africans say local gov­ern­ments have failed to pro­vide jobs, hous­ing, san­i­ta­tion and med­ical ser­vices, and have instead pro­moted a cul­ture of nepotism.

“I want to live like Zuma in a house with elec­tric­ity. I’m tired of liv­ing in a shack, I want a flush toi­let,” said Nico­las Mabit­sela, who lives in the Ramaphosa settlement.

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