Anti-globalisation protesters, united under the banner 'Our world is not for sale', aim to "shut down" the UN Earth Summit in Johannesburg next week.
"It is our aspiration to shut them down. If we can get the numbers, that is what we will do," said Mr Trevor Ngwane, the leader of South Africa's Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF), which claims to have some 20,000 members.
"We are inspired by what happened in Seattle and Genoa." In Seattle two years ago World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks collapsed under the weight of both internal cracks and outside pressure from militant street protests.
Prominent anti-globalisation activist Mr Dennis Brutus denounced the 10-day World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), predicting it would promote corporate globalisation and fail to tackle poverty like the last summit of its kind in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.
"The WSSD is a talk shop, like 10 years ago it will be a lot of hot air and not produce results. On the contrary, 10 years later the living conditions for people are worse," Mr Brutus said.
On August 31st those opposed to globalisation and Africa's NEPAD economic growth plan will march from the poor township of Alexandra to the elite district of Sandton, where the summit will be held, to deliver their demands.
The umbrella Social Movement Indaba (SMI), with some ten affiliates and backed by similar international movements, is organising the demonstration.
"The WSSD is a gathering of the rich and powerful. Those in Sandton are part of the problem, they can't be part of the solution.
The solution is with the people marching from Alex," said Mr Ngwane.
"From ordinary people we expect a warm welcome, but not from the likes of Mr Thabo Mbeki and Mr Colin Powell. They will not put out teacups and champagne glasses," he said.
AFP