the last paragraph is particularly touching, I think...
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Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 00:22:42 EST
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Subject: [AfricaMatters] South African President Upbeat
South African President Upbeat
By MIKE COHEN
.c The Associated Press
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) - South Africa's president issued a glowing
assessment of the country's prospects Friday, saying poor blacks have
progressed despite the economic gap between the races.
In his annual State of the Nation speech to Parliament, President Thabo Mbeki
highlighted the nation's advances in the seven years since the fall of
apartheid: more than 1.2 million new homes built, 397,000 households given
electricity, and 6.4 million people provided with clean water.
Employment between 1996 and 1999 increased from 9.3 million to 10.4 million,
disposable income over the past five years rose by an annual average of 2.8
percent, and the economy was stable and increasingly competitive.
``Despite all these advances, we are still faced with a daunting backlog of
poverty and maldistribution of income and wealth,'' Mbeki said.
Parliament's opening ceremony was a glittering affair. Air force jets flew
past, performers enacted scenes from South Africa's history, and some
lawmakers wore colorful, traditional African clothes.
Mbeki's speech came amid a deterioration in public morale in the wake of
rampant AIDS, crime and unemployment and growing allegations that a massive
arms deal was tainted by corruption.
Unemployment in South Africa is currently about 30 percent, while millions of
people remain without even basic services.
Mbeki's address made only passing mention of the need to combat HIV, which
afflicts an estimated 10 percent of South Africa's 45 million people.
He announced a number of measures to boost the economy, including ``managed
liberalization'' of the energy, transport and telecommunications sectors.
``Immigration laws and procedures will be reviewed urgently to enable us to
attract skills into our country,'' Mbeki said.
The government will also make mathematics and science education a priority,
he said.
Mbeki promised to recruit 30,000 police reservists to reduce crime, and he
pushed his Millennium African Recovery Program, a proposal to eliminate
poverty and war in the continent.
``We march into the new era of the African Century as Africans who have made
the determination that this century will be a hundred years in which we cease
to be victims of our circumstances, but victors,'' he said.
South Africa needs to play a leading role in this plan, he said.
``No African child should ever again walk in fear of guns, tyrants and
abuse,'' he said. ``No African child should ever again experience hunger,
avoidable disease and ignorance ... no African child should ever again feel
ashamed to be an African.''
AP-NY-02-09-01 0659EST
Copyright 2001 The Associated Press.
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