South African police shoot at striking farm workers

South African police fired rubber bullets and tear gas to repel hundreds of rock-throwing farm workers on Thursday, during a second day of strike violence in the normally calm and picturesque wine region. Police and protesting farm workers fought running battles along the shuttered N1 motorway, the main route linking Cape Town and Johannesburg, amid workers' demands for a doubling of wages to $17.50 a day. Protesters in De Doorns hurled stones at police armoured vehicles, prompting officers in riot gear to respond with a volley of rubber bullets and tear gas. The strikers were dispersed but rapidly and repeatedly re-gathered, in a game of cat and mouse that has rocked South Africa's main wine and fruit producing region since flaring last year. Eighteen people were arrested Thursday. Undeterred, protesters ripped down metal street signs and wire meshing to use as cover from the raining bullets as they advanced on police positions. Empty bullet casings, stones and boulders were strewn over the area which lies less than two hours drive from Cape Town and is the country's biggest grape growing region. "There's running battles between police and the strikers. Shooting and stone throwing is the order of the day in the area," Nosey Pieterse, general secretary of the Bawsi Agricultural Workers' Union of South Africa (Bawusa), told AFP. Protests took place in three towns in the Western Cape which provides 55-60 percent of the country's agricultural exports and employs nearly 200,000 permanent and seasonal workers. The head of the South African agricultural trade association Agri SA said the bulk of permanent workers were reporting for work. "Yesterday the turnout of permanent workers was in the region of 80 percent, and I think it would be more or less the same today," Johannes Moller told AFP. "It's the seasonal workers who are striking," he added. The workers in the province on Wednesday launched a fresh round of industrial action to press for the doubling of their wages. This was after talks for more pay under way since unprecedented farms unrest in the region in November in which two people died collapsed last week. The renewed strike comes on the back of a run of labour troubles in South Africa, characterised by last year's deadly wildcat mining stay-aways, which killed more than 50 people. "We are fully deployed in the area and have taken action in various sections to maintain law and order," said Andre Traut, police spokesman for the region. "Eighteen arrests have been made so far," he added. On Wednesday, 44 people were arrested. Workers who pick and pack fruit on farms in the scenic region are demanding a wage hike from 69 rand ($8) to 150 rand ($17.50) a day. Union officials estimated that around 8,000 labourers in the affected farming towns had downed tools after wage negotiations collapsed. "Our image internationally is taking a knock and at this stage there is a table grape harvest hanging in the vineyards and the farmers cannot harvest," Wouter Kriel, spokesman for the Western Cape Department of Agriculture told AFP. There was a high level of intimidation against workers from protesters, he said, saying more than 95 percent of De Doorns farmers had signed contracts with seasonal and permanent workers.