South Africa reopens national debate on racism

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (Reuters) -- South Africa's carefully nurtured image as the Rainbow Nation may be severely tested this week at a national conference on racism that could put abuses by whites against blacks sharply into focus.

President Thabo Mbeki on Wednesday opens the four-day conference convened by the country's top human rights watchdog to tackle racism six years into the country's democracy.

Mbeki's opening speech will set the tone and goals of the meeting, which is aimed at addressing the gulf in wealth and opportunity between blacks and whites.

"The president is concerned about the issue of racism in South Africa, which he feels has not been dealt with adequately since 1994. There are an increasing number of racist attacks and xenophobia," presidential spokesman Nazeem Mahatey told Reuters.

"Racism is felt predominately by black people...white people need to come to terms with how racism was institutionalized under apartheid, but the aim is not to flog them (whites) in any way," Mahatey said.

Mbeki called last year and again in an opening address to parliament in February for a conference to end the "cancer of racism" which, he said, had created two "nations" -- one black and poor and the other white and prosperous.

His comments on race contrast with his predecessor, former President Nelson Mandela, who espoused reconciliation under a banner of non-racialism.

The statutory South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC), which is responsible for the conference, hopes it will raise awareness over racism, which has persisted despite a constitution that guarantees universal rights.

SAHRC head Barney Pityana has highlighted gratuitous racial violence, discrimination in employment and housing, the exclusion on race grounds of people from leisure and entertainment facilities and widely different educational opportunities as every-day realities for black South Africans.

"Racism has gone underground and has become subversive... The polarization of this country is still very strong. Poverty is race-defined and housing is discriminatory.

The SAHRC's pre-conference public hearings were dominated by written and oral testimony by blacks abused mainly by whites.

Racial violence against farm workers and discrimination in urban schools and at banks were common complaints. Bad treatment at the hands of the police, where many officers are still white, was also a frequent grievance.

Bronwyn Page-Shipp of the Centre for Rural Legal Studies said abuse on farms continued unchecked largely because of the feudal-like relationship between farmers and their workers.

"There is continued abuse on the farms in labor conditions, the basic level of employment and unfair evictions. People don't know their rights," Page-Shipp said.

Some whites fear the conference will degenerate into mud-slinging against whites, who make up about 12 percent of the population, but still control the bulk of national wealth.

Opinion polls suggest that whites, more than blacks or other races in South Africa, believe that race relations have deteriorated since Mandela was elected in 1994.

A poll of 2,700 South Africans in November found 52 percent of blacks believed race relations had improved since 1994 compared with only 37 percent of whites.

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