Hate-crime trials set scene for racism conference

By ALEX DUVAL SMITH

JOHANNESBURG - Less than two weeks before it hosts a controversial world conference on racism, South Africa again confronts the still-seeping wounds of its past with the start of two high-profile court cases over gruesome hate crimes.

Even as the United States, Israel and India threaten to boycott all or part of the United Nations conference on racism, due to start in Durban on August 31, seven white South Africans are being brought to court at the start of two separate trials that will lay bare the continued racism and brutality of their country, seven years after apartheid officially ended.

At Pretoria High Court overnight, six white police officers were to face charges of attempted murder for allegedly using up to four dogs to attack three illegal immigrants.

South Africans of all races were appalled last November when a home video of the attack, made by the officers as a "training film", was broadcast on television. It showed the officers shouting racial abuse in Afrikaans and laughing as their dogs dug their teeth into victims.

In a separate trial in a mobile court - chosen to prevent the disruption of proceedings - 44-year-old white builder Pieter Odendaal will face a murder charge for allegedly attaching one of his black employees, John Rampuru, to his pick-up truck and dragging him 5km to his death along the suburban roads of Sasolburg last August.

The killing was almost identical to the murder of James Byrd, in Texas, in 1998, by three whites.

The two trials are set to shift on to home ground the debate surrounding preparations for the week-long World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, at which more than 10,000 delegates are expected.

Observers hope the events will get South Africans talking constructively on racism.

- INDEPENDENT