Country profile: South Africa

Country profile: South Africa

BBC News - Wednesday, 1 August, 2001

Diversity is a key feature of South Africa, where 11 languages are recognised as official, where community leaders include rabbis and chieftains, rugby players and returned exiles, where traditional healers ply their trade around the corner from stockbrokers and where housing ranges from mud huts to palatial homes with swimming pools.

OVERVIEW

The diverse communities, however, have not had much representation for long. Until 1994 South Africa was ruled by a white minority which considered itself superior, and which was so determined to hang onto power that it took activists most of last century before they succeeded in their fight to get rid of apartheid and extend democracy to the rest of the population.

The white governments had grand social engineering schemes which separated the races and involved the forced resettlement of hundreds of thousands of people. They poisoned and bombed opponents and encouraged trouble in neighbouring countries to help prove their contention that black rule meant chaos.

The apartheid government eventually negotiated itself out of power, and the new leadership encouraged reconciliation. But the cost of the years of conflict will be paid for a long time yet, not least in terms of lawlessness, social disruption and lost education.

South Africa faces major problems, but having held two successful national elections as well as local polls since the end of white rule, a democratic culture appears to be taking hold, allowing people at least some say in the search for solutions.

SOUTH AFRICA

LEADERS

President: Thabo Mbeki

Mbeki took over as president when Nelson Mandela stepped down in mid-1999, but he is considered to have in fact ruled the country almost since the ANC became South Africa's first democratically elected government in April 1994.

He was born in 1942 into one of the leading families of black politics and has been close to the heart of the struggle against apartheid all his life. His father, Govan, is a leading thinker in the South African Communist Party.

Mbeki played a central role both in planning the armed insurrection that caused the first cracks in the edifice of white rule and in the talks that led to its end.

He has been criticised for questioning the link between HIV and Aids and for failing to condemn the land invasions in Zimbabwe.

* Deputy President: Jacob Zuma

* Foreign Minister: Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma

* Defence Minister: Patrick Lekota

* Home Affairs Minister: Mangosuthu Buthelezi

* Finance Minister: Trevor Manuel

MEDIA

The constitution provides for freedom of the press, and this is generally respected in practice. Laws, regulation and political control of media content are considered to be moderate and there is little evidence of repressive measures against journalists.

Newspapers and magazines publish reports and comment critical of the government, and several independent radio stations are on air. The state-owned South African Broadcasting Corporation is far more independent now than during the apartheid era.

The press

* The Star - Johannesburg daily

* Sowetan - Johannesburg daily

* Beeld - Johannesburg daily

* Mail and Guardian - weekly

* Financial Mail - weekly

* Sunday Times

Television

* SABC (South African Broadcasting Corporation)

* e-TV (independent)

Radio

* SABC (South African Broadcasting Corporation)

* 702 Talk radio

News agency

* South African Press Association (SAPA)
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