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Raging xenophobia in South Africa – attacks on immigrants |
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At least 24 people, mostly immigrants from neighbouring countries such as Zimbabwe and Mozambique and Malawi, have been killed in more than a week of violence against the immigrants. Indian, Pakistani and Chinese businessmen have also not been spared. Some people have been burnt alive. At least 16,000 people have been displaced, according to the UN International Organisation for Migration. About a hundred foreigners have been attacked and nine thousand Mozambique nationals have crossed the border back to their country. As the riots continued unabated, the South African Government called out the Army on May 22 to quell violence.
The immigrants are accused by the impoverished South Africans of stealing jobs. They believe that the increasing influx of immigrants is responsible for their joblessness, the rising inflation, power shortage and the increasing crime in their country. There are over three million Zimbabweans in South Africa who have fled their homeland because of the economic collapse there. Extreme poverty has forced people from other African countries too to look for jobs in South Africa. Zimbabweans, like others on the continent, have been lured by work in South African mines, farms and homes in South Africa which has the world’s most liberal immigration and refugee policies.
The trouble started in the sprawling township of Alexandra on May 11and then spread to nearby Johannesburg which is South Africa’s economic hub and home to hundreds of thousands of immigrants, many of them illegal. It has also spilled over to the volatile Zulu heartland and local media in the eastern Kwazulu-Natal Province said on May 22, at least six immigrants were wounded in an overnight attack on a Nigerian-owned tavern in Durban. Locals targeted Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi nationals for taking their jobs. In Cleveland near Johannesburg, traders were beaten up on the streets and their goods were stolen. Gangs went through a block of flats banging on doors, identifying foreigners and ordering them to leave without their belongings which were then looted. An Indian, Niten Singh, who was running a photography studio in Actonville in Durban, was burnt alive when his shop was set on fire. Also, a number of shops belonging to the Asians, including Pakistanis and Chinese, were reportedly vandalized in the town of Hammanskrall, north of Pretoria, on May 21. Police confirmed that a number of shacks at a settlement near Johannesburg were set alight and more than 100 people were displaced. In Cleveland, about 50 people were taken to hospital with gunshots and stab wounds. At least ten thousand migrants have sought refuge in police stations and churches. There as xenophobic murders, rapes and other violence spread across the city and its satellite towns last Sunday.
As the violence spread, police have asked the army for equipment to help combat the menace. The Government is thinking of deploying the Army in the worst affected districts. President Thabo Mbeki and ruling ANC party leader Jacob Zuma have called for an end to violence which threatens a new strain on an economy struggling with rising inflation and power and skill shortage.
As mentioned earlier, the immediate cause for the violence is the desperation of sections of the poor black South Africans living in subhuman conditions. South Africa remains the most unequal country in the world where the gap between the rich and the poor is very large.
Extensive research by the South African Migration Project has shown that South Africa, Botswana and Namibia are among the xenophobic countries in the world and that South Africans hold by far the harshest sentiments. Furthermore, these sentiments cut across all major socio-economic and demographic categories. South Africa and the neighbouring countries have always been hating each other. Colonialism and apartheid were built on such a consciousness. Sections of South Africa’s political class – a small minority – lead its population to adopt progressive laws and attitudes towards immigration. In contrast, the population is generally conservative and socially rightwing. Political observers say, those South Africans who have been deprived of the fruits of economic growth deserve to be given their due. This may help stem the tide of anti-immigrant sentiment. In the era of globalisation and greater regional cooperation, killing people of other nationalities certainly is not a solution to economic disputes.
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