South Africa Something Burning Inside

The rumors raced through the maze of jam-packed shanties like a burning fuse: a fleet of government vehicles had arrived to relocate all 60,000 residents of the settlement, and a squad of toughs had been brought in to add muscle to the operation. The rumors proved false, but by dawn, the men of Crossroads, a wretched black squatters' camp in the sand dunes just outside Cape Town, began blocking the roads around their shacks with makeshift barricades of logs, stones, oil drums, old tires and anything else they could find. Then they set the barriers ablaze.

As uniformed policemen and riot...