28 August 2004	Saturday	11 Rajab 1425

ABU DIS, Aug 27: The grandson of Mahatma Gandhi told about 2,000 protesters at Israel's West Bank barrier on Friday that the wall recalled the way South Africa's former white-minority regime treated blacks.

Arun Gandhi is on a week-long Middle East visit to spread the message of non-violence to Palestinians and Israel locked in bloody conflict.

Speaking to a crowd of Palestinians and foreigners, as well as Israeli left-wing activists, he said the barrier, which Israel says keeps out suicide bombers but Palestinians call a land grab, might isolate Palestinians but not silence them just as apartheid rule failed to suppress blacks in South Africa.

"I spent my childhood in South Africa. What I've seen today reminds me of bantustans. This wall will not bring security to Israel," he said at the foot of the huge cement barrier slicing by the West Bank town of Abu Dis.

Bantustans were scattered "homelands" designated for blacks under white-ruled South Africa's policy of racial separation. They were abolished when democratic black-majority government came into being a decade ago.

As Gandhi spoke, some protesters rappelled up the concrete barrier and waved a Palestinian flag as they reached the top. Palestinians contend that the barrier, and continued Israeli settlement expansion in occupied West Bank areas, could relegate them to enclaves akin to "bantustans" and leave no room for the viable state they seek. -Reuters