SOUTH AFRICA: Militant anti-globalisation groups, whose supporters have confronted South African police on three occasions in the past week, vowed yesterday to "shut down" the UN Earth Summit.
"It is our aspiration to shut them down. If we can get the numbers, that is what we will do," said Mr Trevor Ngwane, the leader of South Africa's Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF), which claims to have some 20,000 members.
"We are inspired by what happened in Seattle and Genoa", where protesters clashed violently with police at international gatherings, he told a briefing in downtown Johannesburg.
The Social Movement Indaba (SMI) groups, united under the banner "Our world is not for sale", have denounced the summit, in contrast to the Civil Society Global People's Forum - a meeting of thousands of non-governmental organisations parallel to the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), which starts in Johannesburg on Monday.
Some 160 SMI supporters, including a US activist threatened with deportation, were being detained yesterday in police cells in Johannesburg following protests during the week.
Prominent anti-globalisation activist Mr Dennis Brutus denounced the 10-day World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), predicting it would promote corporate globalisation and fail to tackle poverty, just as the last summit of its kind in Rio de Janeiro did in 1992.
"The WSSD is a talk shop, like 10 years ago it will be a lot of hot air and not produce results. On the contrary, 10 years later the living conditions for people are worse," he told journalists.
South Africa has imposed an undeclared state of emergency in its clampdown on protest ahead of the summit, a National Land Committee spokesman, Mr Andile Mngxitma, claimed from inside the cells.
Mr Ngwane said: "The police attacked people during a peaceful march ... The ANC government is learning from the hard tactics of apartheid."
On Wednesday, 77 people landless people who marched through Johannesburg were arrested, following the weekend arrest of 83 soldiers affiliated to the SMI who were demanding their reintegration into the army.
Last week, 87 SMI members appeared in a Johannesburg court, in connection with a march on the mayor's house earlier this year.
An SMI supporter, Ms Nhlanhla Vilakazi, told journalists yesterday she had been approached by the National Intelligence Agency to spy on the group's supporters.
The SMI is organising a march on August 31st from the poor township of Alexandra to the elite district of Sandton, where the summit will be held.