Schwartzerwitz: Police get rough with queueing refugees

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Police get rough with queueing refugees

Cape Town - Dozens of refugees were manhandled by police as they queued in the rain outside Customs House on Monday.

The refugee centre has been plagued by allegations of corruption, violence and congestion.

Refugees say they have been returning every day for weeks trying to renew their expired documents.

Seeking shelter under a nearby bridge, Derrick Kibi - originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo - said he had been queueing since June 13. “I’ve been coming here every day, and this morning I came here at 5am, and I’m still here. What makes me upset is seeing the women and the children standing in the rain.”

Each time officials ushered small groups of people into the building, there would be a sudden dash from the group standing beneath the bridge.

Police stepped in and the Cape Argus watched as officers grabbed people and shoved others aside - a few were pushed so hard they fell to the ground. Last week, police reportedly fired tear gas outside the centre in a similar scenario. Police were called in when security guards struggled to control the crowd.

Some people accused officials of “slowing down processes” to fuel corruption.

Earlier this month, the security chief at the centre was removed from his post while being investigated for accepting bribes.

Refugee rights organisation People Against Suffering Oppression and Poverty (Passop) members spent on Monday observing the commotion.

Passop’s Braam Hanekom said they were monitoring how many people were being turned away without being served, whether their dignity was being infringed upon, and the response from police.

“The situation is not acceptable,” Hanekom said, adding that many of the people in the queue appreciated having the police on-site from a safety perspective.

“But it’s not the job of the police to run the queue,” Hanekom said.

In response, provincial police spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel André Traut said police were stationed at Customs House to monitor the crowd.

“The situation at the Department of Home Affairs is monitored by SAPS to prevent incidents of violence while people are waiting.”

Local management at Customs House was unavailable for comment on Monday.

- Cape Argus

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Every Pogrom needs an Armband....

Welcome to Schwartzerwitz. The inevitable consequence of 4 million illegal immigrants arriving in South Africa. More desperate than our local folk they are willing to work longer harder faster for less. The immigrants are more reliable than South African unskilled labour and have outcompeted the local folk. No matter what anyone says it's not FAIR on our locals. Adding 4 million hungry mouths to the country has exacerbated the rocketing food prices felt across the globe. Adding 4 million potential electricity users to the mix has undoubtedly worsened the electricity situation. Having 4 million people send home money to their family drains the economy of money which should stay within the borders. Adding 4 million people and not registering them as taxpayers has cost the country billions. What chance does our government of ridding the country of shacks as per the Millennium Development Goal when 4 million immigrants build/rent shacks. Murambatsvina in Zimbabwe....? Just move to a shack in South Africa. On an individual basis this site condemns violent acts against individuals. However as a collective the illegal immigrants deserve no sympathy and should be deported back from whence they came. These people are economic refugees - "not real refugees" - and they are(generally speaking) in South Africa illegally.

kwerekwere.

The inside cover of my Oxford English dictionary features a word with which I have become all too familiar: the word is kwerekwere.

(It may be more familiar to you with one of its vernacular language–dependant prefixes prepended — the Sotho singular being le– and plural ma–, the Nguni singular being i– and plural ama–). This word is used to refer to black (in the morphological sense) Africans who are not South Africans — South African being defined as Sotho, Nguni, Venda and Tsonga ethnic groups (by that measure the Swazis, Batswana, etc. would be South African?). This word has a very negative sting to it and is often used with contempt. From what I gather it has undertones which speak of how black Africans are believed to be sub–human, too dark and have a pungent smell.