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JOHANNESBURG - Under the battle-cry "Zero tolerance to crime," South Africa's ruling alliance plans to enlist ordinary citizens from Friday in a month-long campaign against a terrifying scourge that pays no heed to race or class.

"We call on communities to reclaim our streets from criminals, to ensure that our women and children can walk peacefully at the crack of dawn and the still of the night," the ruling African National Congress (ANC) said in a statement.

The campaign, which will be rolled out in February, aims to involve citizens in everything from the repair of police stations to the manning of roadblocks.

South Africa is scarred by sky-high rates of violent crime, fuelled by vast income disparities and wretched poverty.

The crime-hardened nation has been shocked to its core in recent months by an apparent surge in baby rapes and the murder last week of a 17-year-old girl who was shot dead at point-blank range for her cell phone in a Johannesburg suburb.

South Africa's murder rate has fallen from 50.9 people per 100,000 in 1994 to 33 per 100,000 in the first nine months of last year, according to police statistics.

But it remains far above the levels in developed countries, and the more than 15,000 reported cases of murder in the first nine months of last year equalled the U.S. total in 2000 -- though the U.S. population is more than six times bigger.

Bleak squatter camps churn out criminals as young men find no work in a country with a jobless rate of over 30 percent.

In upscale suburbs, mostly white residents barricade themselves behind high walls and rely on heavily-armed private security companies rather than the police for protection.

Even rural areas are under siege. In the first nine months of last year, 103 farmers and farm workers were murdered in 651 attacks, according to Agri SA, an agricultural umbrella group.

"It is really important to focus on crime, it is a huge deterrent to the foreign investment this country needs," said investment bank Brait economist Colen Garrow, who had his car hijacked at gun point four months ago.

The ANC and its left-wing alliance partners, the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions, say public participation is crucial, and have set aside February to foster community involvement in the war on crime.

In the first week of February, the ANC-led alliance plans to mobilise volunteer programmes through church groups and other organisations and train citizens in ways to assist the police.

In the second week, communities that have received training will help police to set up roadblocks and patrol areas identified as crime "hot spots."

The third week will see a major drive to circulate photos of suspects and missing children in public places, while in the fourth week a campaign will focus on discouraging people from buying stolen goods from criminals.

The four weeks will also see a concerted drive to raise the number of active police reservists, which currently stands at around 16,000. The volunteer reservists are seen as a vital backup to the country's 80,000 active police officers.

"Anything that mobilises communities against crime is a positive thing," said crime analyst Gareth Newham of the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation.

"But if there is a surge in the number of people calling the police about crime and they can't respond adequately, then people will be even more disillusioned," he said. Nampa-Reuters