Mbeki Says Crime Reports Are Racist

President Thabo Mbeki has made a withering attack on commentators who argue that violent crime is out of control in South Africa, calling them white racists who want the country to fail.

He said crime was falling but some journalists distorted reality by depicting black people as "barbaric savages" who liked to rape and kill.

Annual statistics published last month show that most categories of crime are down, but some have challenged the figures' credibility and say that South Africa remains extremely dangerous, especially for women.

In a column for the African National Congress website, the president rebuked the doubters and scorned a white journalist, Charlene Smith, who has championed victims of sexual violence since writing about her own rape.

Mocking her description as an "internationally recognised expert on sexual violence", Mr Mbeki did not name Ms Smith but quoted a recent article in which she said South Africa had the highest rate of rape.

"She was saying our cultures, traditions and religions as Africans inherently make every African man a potential rapist ... [a] view which defines the African people as barbaric savages."

Mr Mbeki also described the predominantly white newspaper The Citizen, and other commentators who challenge the apparent fall in crime, as pessimists who did not trust black rule.

His online letter has become a launchpad for attacks on the media, multinationals and opposition parties.

Ms Smith, who went public in 1999 after she was raped and stabbed in Johannesburg, said yesterday that the statistics were too low because many victims withdrew their complaints after being paid by the assailants. "The president is in denial," she said. "I have been very careful to keep saying that rape has nothing to do with race."