South African Stampedes

"Stampede kills woman in South Africa; Rare college seats drew thousands" by Lydia Polgreen  |  New York Times, January 11, 2012

JOHANNESBURG - One woman died and several people were injured yesterday in a stampede by students desperate to apply for admission to a public university here.

The crush at the University of Johannesburg pointed to a broad crisis in South Africa’s overstretched higher education system as it struggles to extend opportunities once reserved only for whites to all South Africans: There are too many students seeking too few seats at the country’s public universities, which turn away two-thirds of their applicants, leaving few options for most high school graduates.

Not only that, the shortage plays into a wider problem of unemployment among young people. Adcorp, a temporary staffing firm, said in a recent report that there were 600,000 unemployed college graduates in South Africa.

At the University of Johannesburg, thousands of students and their parents had begun lining up Monday night, some of them sleeping on the grass outside, in hopes of securing one of fewer than 1,000 available spots in the incoming class. When the gates opened early yesterday, the crowd surged, witnesses said....

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"Poor want more from S. African mines" Associated Press, February 18, 2012

MATLOU, South Africa - Impoverished and angry South Africans held a marathon march across a platinum-rich corner of the country yesterday to demand that a multinational mining company share more wealth.

“They are making millions here, but the community around is getting nothing,’’ said 21-year-old Olebogeng Tseleng, who rose at 5 a.m. for a march that later started in her village of tin shacks and modest brick or cement homes, none with indoor plumbing.

From Matlou, about 45 miles northwest of Johannesburg, the march picked up more protesters in villages strung between a line of low, rocky hills to the west and a giant platinum mine to the east owned by the multinational company Xstrata.

At each stop, there were speeches. The protest also was delayed by occasional outbursts of tire-burning and rock-throwing. But it was generally peaceful, unlike protests a day earlier in the nearby town of Rustenburg prompted by a mass layoff at another mine after a strike for higher wages was declared illegal.

Rustenburg was relatively calm yesterday, a day after out-of-work miners looted stores and attacked miners who were employed. Police said one miner was killed and another seriously injured in Rustenburg.

A restive labor force and the demands of communities like Matlou are among the many challenges facing the mining industry in South Africa. The industry has been weakened by decades of underinvestment, and a debate over nationalization and other policy questions have created uncertainty that has spooked potential investors....

Xstrata spokesman Songezo Zibi said he understood the impatience and frustration of villagers in a country with high rates of unemployment and poverty. But he said addressing South Africa’s inequalities would take time, and that mining companies could do only so much....  

 As they poison the environment with their extractions.

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Also see: Poachers kill 200 African elephants