SAfrica tightens security around Confed stadiums

Klaas Kekana was surprised to find that he and his two friends were seated in completely different parts of Pretoria’s stadium when they went to see Italy play the United States.

“We have nothing like this, this seating information. This way of dividing us is quite strange to us,” the 40-year-old electrician from a township outside the capital said.

Assigned seating is just one of the novelties that South Africans are confronting at the Confederations Cup, where the stadiums have to meet stringent security criteria set by the world football governing body FIFA.

An average of 50 people meet a violent death every day in South Africa, and the government is keenly aware that any incident linked to the games would cast a shadow over next year’s World Cup and potentially scare off some of the 450,000 foreigners expected to visit then.

Hoping to ease those concerns, police have cordoned off an area one kilometre around the stadiums, while everyone entering must pass through a metal detector and have their bags scanned.

The assigned seating is meant to prevent overcrowding or the risk of a stampede, and unlike in local matches, no one without tickets is allowed to enter the stadium grounds.

About 8,000 police officers are deployed for the Confed Cup, which is also being hosted in Johannesburg, Bloemfontein and Rustenburg.

FIFA, which imposes its own stringent security rules on all stadiums that host its games, has repeatedly said that it’s satisfied with the government’s security precautions.

“We’ve always been impressed with the South African police and their ability to deal with these big events and that continues,” said FIFA?s competition director Jim Brown.

“I know they’re engaged and very prepared,” he told reporters before the tournament opened.

Only a few thousand foreign fans are expected at the two-week event, seen as a test drive ahead of the World Cup.

Nadia Venditti, from Udine, Italy, was among them, bringing her family on a three-week trip to South Africa to watch their national team play.

She said she wasn’t overly concerned about crime, but planned to stick to the well-trod tourist trail of family-friendly attractions like Kruger National Park, the Sun City resort complex and Cape Town.

“They’re trying hard,” she said of the security deployed around the stadiums. “You’ve got to be careful. Wherever you go in the world is crime. It’s the same in Rome, you’ve got to watch your pocketbook.”

But crime in South Africa tends to be more violent than in many countries. The last global comparison of murder rates by the United Nations, covering 1998 to 2000, put South Africa’s rate the second highest in the world — behind war-torn Colombia.

Adjusted for population, South Africa’s murder rate was 11 times higher than the United States, which had one of the highest among rich countries. It was 38 times higher than Italy’s.

Crime generally has been declining since the study was completed, but the government is taking even more precautions for the World Cup.

About 41,000 law enforcement officers will be dedicated to ensuring security for the games that run June 11 to July 11, 2010. Defence forces will be on standby as backups.

But fans like Kekana say the precautions have dampened the party atmosphere that prevails in most local matches, where metre-long trumpets known as vuvuzelas blare while fans sing and dance through the games.

“In Bloemfontein, sometimes they don’t even know what the outcome of the game is, they are there to sing,” he said. “South Africans are used to their kind of vibe.”

“This looks like an army camp.”