By Wendell Roelf CAPE TOWN, Feb 15 (Reuters) - South African President Thabo Mbeki vowed on Thursday to carry out a pledge to reduce the country's high level of violent crime amid accusations that his government had turned a blind eye to the problem. "(I) reaffirm that the government will do everything possible to act on what we have promised," Mbeki told parliament less than a week after declaring that tackling social problems like poverty and crime were his priorities for 2007. Responding to critical remarks by many opposition parliamentarians in a two-day debate on his Feb. 9 State of the Nation address, Mbeki focused on action to tackle crime but said crime could not be eradicated without also reducing poverty. The government has made progress in combating crime, Mbeki said, but he conceded that more needed to be done. The bulk of violent crimes occur in poor, marginalised communities that have an "almost irreversible sense of hopelessness," he said. In his Feb. 9 address, Mbeki acknowledged that many South Africans lived in fear of crime and announced plans to expand the police force and give officers more resources to pursue criminals. Opposition parties and the media have accused Mbeki of lacking the resolve and vision to tackle crime, which some believe is spiralling out of control in Johannesburg, the country's economic hub, and in other major cities. South Africa has some of the world's highest rates of violent crime, including 18,528 murders last year, and has been jarred by a series of sensational crimes, including the murder of a prominent South African historian last month. Business leaders have expressed fears that, if left unchecked, this could deter tourism and foreign investment in Africa's biggest economy and ruin the country's chances of successfully hosting the 2010 soccer World Cup. Unease about the problem and Mbeki's approach to it recently pushed First National Bank to plan a campaign to encourage citizens to write to Mbeki about their experiences of crime. The drive was dropped at the last minute after pressure from officials and business leaders close to Mbeki, according to news reports. The trade union Solidarity, however, was not silenced when Mbeki's office failed to confirm receipt of thousands of crime-related emails generated by the union's website www.dearpresident.co.za On Thursday the predominantly white union arranged for 32,000 letters to be delivered in wheelbarrows to Mbeki's office in the capital Pretoria as part of its "Stop the Murders" campaign. "We want to point out to the president that crime is more than statistics, that it's something that affects ordinary citizens of our country," union general secretary Dick Hermann told SAPA news agency. (Additional reporting by Paul Simao in Johannesburg)
