JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — South Africans pressing for change in Zimbabwe plan a hunger strike and other protests in an effort to force their government to isolate President Robert Mugabe.

Methodist Bishop Paul Verryn said Thursday that South Africans needed to live up to the legacy of the struggle against apartheid, when Zimbabweans supported them. Verryn has made his Johannesburg church a shelter for hundreds of Zimbabweans who have fled their country's turmoil and collapse.

"What are we doing in this country to bring hope to the hopeless?" Verryn asked at a news conference at which activists outlined their plans. "It seems as if we have forgotten so quickly what it really feels like to be vulnerable. "

Kumi Naidoo, like Verryn a veteran of the anti-apartheid campaign, traveled to Zimbabwe Christmas week. He said Zimbabweans asked him again and again why South Africa was betraying them, citing in particular South Africa's efforts to block the U.N. Security Council from censuring Mugabe.

"I felt a deep sense of shame as a South African," Naidoo said.

The South African government has argued that confronting Mugabe could backfire. It says the solution lies in a September power-sharing agreement under which Mugabe would remain president and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai would get the new post of prime minister.

But with the agreement stalled in a dispute over distributing Cabinet posts and Zimbabwean security forces stepping up harassment of Mugabe's opponents, there have been increasing calls for Mugabe to step down.

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Mugabe, 84, is accused of trampling on his people's democratic rights and overseeing an economic collapse.

Naidoo said he would go on a hunger strike at Verryn's church for a month to draw attention to Zimbabwe's crisis. The start of the strike has not been determined. He said Desmond Tutu, the retired Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, will support him by fasting one day a week. A spokeswoman said Tutu was ill with the flu Thursday and would have no immediate comment.

The activists said they would also "name and shame" South African companies doing business in Zimbabwe, possibly leading to boycotts.

Naidoo said one aim was to raise awareness among South Africans, who have taken to the streets in recent days to protest Israeli strikes in Gaza, but have remained largely quiet about neighboring Zimbabwe.

Verryn traced that in part to suspicion of foreigners, particularly those competing for jobs and housing with the poorest South Africans. South Africa saw an eruption of xenophobic violence earlier this year that left scores of Zimbabweans and other immigrants dead.

Elinor Sisulu, a Zimbabwean who has married into one of South Africa's most prominent political families, said many South Africans may not understand the situation in Zimbabwe because of reporting restrictions imposed by Mugabe's government.

Sisulu compared the detentions, harassment and torture meted out to Mugabe's opponents in Zimbabwe to the experiences of her in-laws under apartheid. Her late father-in-law, Walter Sisulu, was a leading member of the African National Congress, which is now South Africa's governing party.

(This version CORRECTS time element to Thursday.) )