Tuesday 26 February 2013
What is Xenophobia ?
Xenophobia in South Africa
Prior to 1994 immigrants from elsewhere in Africa faced
discrimination and even violence in South Africa, though much of that risk
stemmed from the institutionalised racism of the time due to apartheid. After
1994 and democratisation, and contrary to expectations, the incidence of
xenophobia increased. Between 2000 and March 2008 at least 67 people died in
what were identified as xenophobic attacks. In May 2008 a series of riots left
62 people dead; although 21 of those killed were South African citizens. The
attacks were apparently motivated by xenophobia.
Xenophobia in South
Africa Before 1994.
European immigration
Restrictions on immigration can be traced back to the Union
of South Africa, with the different states adopting different policies on
foreigners. A prejudice against immigrants from eastern and southern Europe
(measured against the welcome of those from western and northern Europe) has
been documented. In the Cape Colony the Cape Immigration Act (No 30) of 1906
set as requirement the ability to complete an application form in a European
language (including Yiddish) and proof of £20 as visible means of support.
Mozambican and Congolese immigrants before 1994
Between 1984 and the end of hostilities in that country an
estimated 250 000 to 350 000 Mozambicans fled to South Africa. While never
granted refugee status they were technically allowed to settle in the
bantustans or black homelands created by the apartheid government. The reality
was more varied, with the homeland of Lebowa banning Mozambican settlers
outright while Gazankulu welcomed the refugees with support in the form of land
and equipment. Those in Gazankulu, however, found themselves confined to the
homeland and liable for deportation should they enter South Africa proper, and
evidence exists that their hosts denied them access to economic resource.
Unrest and civil war likewise saw large numbers of Congolese
immigrate to South Africa, many illegally, in 1993 and 1997. Subsequent studies
found indications of xenophobic attitudes towards these refugees, typified by
their being denied access to the primary healthcare to which they were
technically entitled.
Xenophobia in South Africa After 1994
"The ANC government – in its attempts to overcome the
divides of the past and build new forms of social cohesion... embarked on an
aggressive and inclusive nation-building project. One unanticipated by-product
of this project has been a growth in intolerance towards outsiders... Violence
against foreign citizens and African refugees has become increasingly common
and communities are divided by hostility and suspicion."
The study was based on a citizen survey across member states
of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and found South Africans
expressing the harshest anti-foreigner sentiment, with 21% of South Africans in
favour of a complete ban on entry by foreigners and 64% in favour of strict
limitations on the numbers allowed. By contrast, the next-highest proportion of
respondents in favour of a total ban on foreigners were in neighbouring Namibia
and Botswana, at 10%.
Foreigners and the South African Police Service
A 2004 study by the Centre for the Study of Violence and
Reconciliation (CSVR) or attitudes among police officers in the Johannesburg
area found that 87% of respondents believed that most undocumented immigrants
in Johannesburg are involved in crime, despite there being no statistical
evidence to substantiate the perception. Such views combined with the
vulnerability of illegal aliens led to abuse, including violence and extortion,
some analysts argued.
In a March 2007 meeting with home affairs minister Nosiviwe
Mapisa-Nqakula a representative of Burundian refugees in Durban claimed
immigrants could not rely on police for protection but instead found police
mistreating them, stealing from them and making unfounded allegations that they
sell drugs.[6] Two years earlier, at a similar meeting in Johannesburg,
Mapisa-Nqakula had admitted that refugees and asylum seekers were mistreated by
police with xenophobic attitudes.
Violence before May 2008
According to a 1998 Human Rights Watch report immigrants
from Malawi, Zimbabwe and Mozambique living in the Alexandra township were
"physically assaulted over a period of several weeks in January 1995, as
armed gangs identified suspected undocumented migrants and marched them to the
police station in an attempt to 'clean' the township of foreigners." The
campaign, known as "Buyelekhaya" (go back home), blamed foreigners
for crime, unemployment and sexual attacks.
In September 1998 a Mozambican and two Senegalese were thrown
out of a train. The assault was carried out by a group returning from a rally
that blamed foreigners for unemployment, crime and spreading AIDS.
In 2000 seven foreigners were killed on the Cape Flats over
a five-week period in what police described as xenophobic murders possibly
motivated by the fear that outsiders would claim property belonging to locals.
In October 2001 residents of the Zandspruit informal
settlement gave Zimbabweans 10 days to leave the area. When the foreigners
failed to leave voluntarily they were forcefully evicted and their shacks were
burned down and looted. Community members said they were angry that Zimbabweans
were employed while locals remained jobless and blamed the foreigners for a
number of crimes. No injuries were reported among the Zimbabweans.
In the last week of 2005 and first week of 2006 at least
four people, including two Zimbabweans, died in the Olievenhoutbosch settlement
after foreigners were blamed for the death of a local man. Shacks belonging to foreigners
were set alight and locals demanded that police remove all immigrants from the
area.
In August 2006 Somali refugees appealed for protection after
21 Somali traders were killed in July of that year and 26 more in August. The
immigrants believed the murders to be motivated by xenophobia, although police
rejected the assertion of a concerted campaign to drive Somali traders out of
townships in the Western Cape.
Attacks on foreign nationals increased markedly in late 2007
and it is believed that there were at least a dozen attacks between January and
May 2008. The most severe incidents occurred on 8 January 2008 when two
Somali shop owners were murdered in the Eastern Cape towns of Jeffreys Bay and
East London and in March 2008 when seven people were killed including
Zimbabweans, Pakistanis and a Somali after their shops and shacks were set
alight in Atteridgeville near Pretoria.
2008 South Africa riots
Part of the history of South Africa
Spread of violence
On 12 May 2008 a series of riots started in the township of
Alexandra (in the north-eastern part of Johannesburg) when locals attacked
migrants from Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe, killing two people and injuring
40 others.Some attackers were reported to have been singing Jacob Zuma's
campaign song 'Bring Me My Machine Gun'.
In the following weeks the violence spread, first to other
settlements in the Gauteng Province, then to the coastal cities of Durban and
Cape Town.
Attacks were also reported in parts of the Southern Cape,
Mpumalanga, the North West and Free State.
Popular opposition to xenophobia
In Khutsong in Gauteng and the various shack settlements
governed by Abahlali baseMjondolo in KwaZulu-Natal social movements were able
to ensure that there were no violent attacks.
Causes
A report by the Human Sciences Research Council identified
three broad causes for the violence:
relative deprivation, specifically intense competition for
jobs, commodities and housing;
group processes, including psychological categorisation
processes that are nationalistic rather than superordinate
South African exceptionalism, or a feeling of superiority in
relation to other Africans; and
exclusive citizenship, or a form of nationalism that
excludes others.
A subsequent report, Towards Tolerance, Law, and Dignity:
Addressing Violence against Foreign Nationals in South Africa, commissioned by
the International Organisation for Migration found that poor service delivery or
an influx of foreigners may have played a contributing role, but blamed township
politics for the attacks. It also found that community leadership was
potentially lucrative for unemployed people, and that such leaders organised
the attacks. Local leadership could be illegitimate and often violent when
emerging from either a political vacuum or fierce competition, the report said,
and such leaders enhanced their authority by reinforcing resentment towards
foreigners.
Aftermath
1 400 suspects were arrested in connection with the
violence. Nine months after the attacks 128 individuals had been convicted and
30 found not guilty in 105 concluded court cases. 208 cases had been withdrawn
and 156 were still being heard.
One year after the attacks prosecutors said that 137 people
had been convicted, 182 cases had been withdrawn because witnesses or
complainants had left the country, 51 cases were underway or ready for trail
and 82 had been referred for further investigation.
In May 2009, one year after the attacks the Consortium for
Refugees and Migrants in South Africa (Cormsa) said that foreigners remained
under threat of violence and that little had been done to address the causes of
the attacks. The organisation complained of a lack of accountability for those
responsible for public violence, insufficient investigations into the
instigators and the lack of a public government inquiry.
Refugee camps and reintegration question
UNHCR tents at a refugee camp on Olifantsfontein, Midrand,
Johannesburg
After being housed in temporary places of safety (including
police stations and community halls) for three weeks, those who fled the
violence were moved into specially established temporary camps. Conditions in
some camps were condemned on the grounds of location and infrastructure,highlighting
their temporary nature.
The South African government initially adopted a policy of
quickly reintegrating refugees into the communities they originally fled and
subsequently set a deadline in July 2008, by which time refugees would be
expected to return to their communities or countries of origin. After an
apparent policy shift the government vowed that there would be no forced
reintegration of refugees and that the victims would not be deported, even if
they were found to be illegal immigrants.
In May 2009, one year after the attacks, the City of Cape
Town said it would apply for an eviction order to force 461 remaining refugees
to leave two refugee camps in that city.
Domestic political reaction
On 21 May, then-President Thabo Mbeki approved a request
from the SAPS for deployment of armed forces against the attacks in Gauteng. It
is the first time that the South African government has ordered troops out to
the streets in order to quell unrest since the end of apartheid in 1994.
Several political parties blamed each other, and sometimes
other influences, for the attacks. The Gauteng provincial branch of the ANC has
alleged that the violence is politically motivated by a "third hand"
that is primarily targeting the ANC for the 2009 general elections. Both the
Minister of Intelligence, Ronnie Kasrils, and the director general of the
National Intelligence Agency, Manala Manzini, backed the Gauteng ANC's
allegations that the anti-immigrant violence is politically motivated and targeted
at the ANC. Referring to published allegations by one rioter that he was being
paid to commit violent acts against immigrants, Manzini said that the violence
was being stoked primarily within hostel facilities by a third party with
financial incentives.
Helen Zille, leader of the official opposition party the
Democratic Alliance (DA), pointed to instances of crowds of rioters singing
"Umshini wami", a song associated then-president of the ANC Jacob
Zuma, and noted that the rioters also hailed from the rank and file of the ANC
Youth League. She alleged that Zuma had promised years before to his supporters
to take measures against the immigration of foreign nationals to South Africa
and that Zuma's most recent condemnation of the riots and distancing from the
anti-immigration platform was not enough of a serious initiative against the
participation of fellow party members in the violence. Both Zille and the
parliamentary leader of the DA, Sandra Botha, slammed the ANC for shifting the
blame concerning the violence to a "third hand", which is often taken
in South African post-apartheid political discourse as a reference to
pro-apartheid or allegedly pro-apartheid organisations.
Zuma, in turn, condemned both the attacks and the Mbeki
government's response to the attacks; Zuma also lamented the usage of his
trademark song Umshini wami by the rioters. Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe
called for the creation of local committees to combat violence against foreigners.
Zille was also criticised by Finance Minister Trevor Manuel
for being quoted in the Cape Argus as saying that foreigners were responsible
for a bulk of the drug trade in South Africa.
In KwaZulu-Natal province, Bheki Cele, provincial community
safety minister, blamed the Inkatha Freedom Party, a nationalist Zulu political
party, for stoking and capitalising on the violence in Durban. Both Cele and
premier S'bu Ndebele claimed that IFP members had attacked a tavern that
catered to Nigerian immigrants en route to a party meeting. The IFP, which is
based primarily in the predominately ethnically-Zulu KwaZulu-Natal province,
rejected the statements, and had, on 20 May, engaged in an anti-xenophobia
meeting with the ANC.
Grassroots social movements came out strongly against the
2008 xenophobic attacks calling them pogroms promoted by government and
political parties. Some have claimed that local politicians and police have
sanctioned the attacks. They have also called for the closure of the Lindela
Repatriation Centre which is seen as an example of the negative way the South
African government treats African foreigners.
International reaction
The attacks were condemned by a wide variety of
organisations and government leaders throughout Africa and the rest of the
world.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees expressed concerns about the violence and urged the South African
government to cease deportation of Zimbabwean nationals and also to allow the
refugees and asylum seekers to regularise their stay in the country.
Malawi began repatriation of some of its nationals in South
Africa. The Mozambican government sponsored a repatriation drive that saw the
registration of at least 3 275 individuals.
Rumours of new attacks in 2009
Rumours of new attacks in 2010
New Attacks in 2012
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