SA press horrified by lion-mauling

The farm worker may have been thrown into a lion enclosure

Reports that a South African farmer allegedly had a farm worker eaten by a lion have been greeted with horror by the country's newspapers.

There is particular dismay at what the incident - if proven - says about South Africa's society 10 year after the end of apartheid.

"There are times when one reads the news of the day and hopes that the words aren't telling you what you think they are saying," is the stunned response of The Star.

Such outrages are merely business as usual in some parts of this country ThisDay

"It is truly horrifying," the paper continues, "that people can even contemplate meting out this kind of treatment to a fellow human being."

But it is the implications for relations within South Africa's multi-racial society that really concern the daily.

"The damage to relationships," it believes, "is incalculable, especially at a time when South Africans once again seem uncertain about relating to each other."

'Barbarism'

The Johannesburg ThisDay focuses on the tensions in South Africa's countryside.

It is not only the "barbarism" of the act that is shocking, the paper says, but also the story it tells about the lives of farm workers.

"While alleged incidents of extreme brutality such as this one spark justified cries of outrage, we risk overlooking the fact that such outrages are merely business as usual in some parts of this country."

Most farm land is still owned by white farmers employing black workers, and there has been concern over the brutal treatment of farm hands, as well as the killing of landowners.

While conceding that there has been some change on South Africa's farms, the paper thinks it is far from enough.

"Each of these incidents is a microcosm of the hidden but no less real and brutal world inhabited by the farm worker."

The paper urges the government to deal with the problem forcefully.

"It is imperative that government use the full might of the law to crack down on such outrages and bring justice to rural areas, parts of which are divorced from the 21st century."

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.