NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #16/NN_1992_16.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/5282

Text File | 1992-07-21 | 3.5 KB | 86 lines

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From: [e-mail] (Rich Winkel)
Subject: Africa's Fence of Death
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/** reg.safrica: 200.0 **/
** Topic: Africa's Fence of Death **
** Written 11:00 am  Jul 20, 1992 by hrcoord in cdp:reg.safrica **
From: Human Rights Coordinator <hrcoord>
Subject: Africa's Fence of Death

World Press Review
July 1992

(c) 1992 The Stanley Foundation

REGIONAL REPORT: Africa

Fence of Death

It coils and slithers across the barren rocky soil between Mozambique
and South Africa like a sinister electric eel. Someone once called
it "the devil's fence." South Africa built it in 1985 to keep
Mozambican refugees out, a cruel and lethal 40-foot wide barrier
consisting of six coils of razor wire on each side of an eight-
strand electrified fence.

It has killed at least 900 people in six years - more than the
guards at the Berlin Wall - and thousands more bear the scars of
slashing razor wire and the burns from near-lethal levels of
electricity in the fence. South Africa says it has now turned
down the voltage to below-lethal levels, and refugees are more
often caught in the entangling coils of the razor-sharp wire, from
which there is usually no escape.

Young, white conscripts at the South African Defense Force
monitoring posts along the line describe the gruesome sight of
terrified children caught in the wire or of bodies sprawled
across the high-voltage fence. Bleached bones of those who
failed to survive escape attempts can be seen as mute testimonials
to the human desire to live in relative safety, far from the
marauding bands of the Mozambique National Resistance (MNR).

The fence runs about 40 miles from the Swazi border to the
edge of Kruger National Park at the South African town of
Komatipoort, cutting of escape routes into the KaNgwane homeland
of the Eastern Transvall. Another segment of the treble-layer
electrified barrier runs north between Mozambique and Kruger
Park, where refugees face hunger and death from wild animals.

KaNgwane, a Swazi-speaking region of South Africa, is the
smallest and poorest of the 10 ethnically divided homelands,
but its policy has always been to support Mozambique's struggle
against destabilization by providing some sanctuary to friends
and relations across the border. Once in the homeland, the
refugees are integrated into local villages, where it is difficult
to identify them among the 500,000 or so KaNgwane residents.

But there is no money, and Mozambicans are desperate. Along with
the local men in KaNgwane, many soon drift to the white farms
as cheap labor. The lucky ones work for two to three rand [about
$1.00] a day; others become indentured laborers working only
for food.

The "guides" who bring the Mozambicans across the fence often
"sell" indigent refugees to white farmers for as little as $30.
Outright slavery is not unknown. But while everyone deplores
the conditions and the police deny the buying and selling of
people, peasants say they would rather stay in South Africa as
slaves than return to the horrific conditions caused by
MNR terrorism.

-Hugh McCullum
Horizon (monthly)
Harare, Zimbabwe
** End of text from cdp:reg.safrica **