‘Xeno attack destroyed my life’

Johannesburg - It is Africa Day, but George Djedje has nothing to celebrate – only looming financial ruin.

A month ago, the Mozambican had a flourishing panelbeating and spraypainting business in Joburg’s CBD until the neighbouring Zulu hostel rose up in xenophobic madness.

Djedje literally saw his business go up in flames as the mob torched his clients’ vehicles.

Now those clients want him to pay them R200 000 for their cars which were uninsured, plus he needs to find R950 every month to go home to get treatment for his skin cancer.

President Jacob Zuma on Wednesday formally apologised to his Mozambican counterpart President Filipe Nyusi for the death of Mozambicans during the recent wave of xenophobia.

On Sunday, Zuma led the Africa Day celebrations at the University of Pretoria’s Mamelodi West campus, calling for unity among Africans. He denied that South Africans were xenophobic and blamed criminal elements for the recent xenophobic outbreaks.

But it’s scant comfort for Djedje.

“Sometimes, I am too scared to answer my phone when I see it’s my customers calling, because I know they want money and I don’t have it. They say they need their cars. When I tell them that I don’t have money, they say I must make a plan,” the 39-year-old says.

After 17 years in South Africa, Djedje had managed to build himself a small business and amassed a small clientele.

But, in the early hours of April 16, he received a call about trouble at his workshop in Jeppestown.

He rushed there to find chaos. People had broken into his workshop, pushed three cars outside and set them alight.

The mob also got into the workshop and vandalised other vehicles, before setting the building on fire and taking Djedje’s tools.

With a sense of disbelief, Djedje called his clients. When the clients arrived at the scene to find the cars they had saved for so long to buy going up in flames, they cried.

A case was opened at the nearby Jeppe police station.

Djedje said the events of that night have destroyed his life.

He lost his clientele and prospective customers as no one wants to do business with him anymore.

Once in a while when he gets a client, he asks his uncle to lend him his tools and space to work in.

But customers who lost their cars in the fire are constantly on his mind.

“When their calls come, I just become miserable. I don’t know what to say to them anymore.

“One of my lady customers whose car was also burnt, came with her three brothers who asked me when I am going to pay. I don’t know what I am going to do. I have to start from scratch and it is not easy,” Djedje said.

Provincial police spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Lungelo Dlamini said some people had been arrested for the violence in that area. But he could not confirm whether the people who destroyed Djedje’s business were among them.

A lawyer said the first obvious recourse for Djedje would be to claim damages from the people who destroyed his business, if they were caught. But the chances were that the perpetrators probably did not have money.

The second course of action involved suing the government and the minister of police for failing to protect foreigners and their property by not nipping the xenophobic violence in the bud immediately after it erupted.

“It is possible to sue, but it is a very difficult case as he would have to ask himself whether the police or the government could be held responsible. He would have to show a causal link between the police failing to protect him and his business and the hooligans destroying it,” he said.

botho.molosankwe@inl.co.za

- The Star

Zuma: Media blew up xeno attacks

Pretoria - President Jacob Zuma has criticised the media for “exaggerating” events and adopting a negative stance in reporting on the xenophobic attacks which recently rocked the country.

Zuma was speaking at the Africa Day celebrations at the University of Pretoria’s Mamelodi West Campus where he urged the promotion of an African identity in every aspect of life.

“South Africans are not xenophobic. There are elements of criminality where xenophobia is used as an excuse to rob people,” Zuma said.

“It’s important that we do not live in the mindset of the media because there were nationals from other countries who fought in our Struggle and even went to Robben Island.

“If we don’t understand our connectivity as Africans then we have a problem,” Zuma said to a cheering crowd.

He also called for unity among Africans and said Africa Day bears a special meaning to South Africans and the role they should play within the continent.

“Starting from today, every community and institutions must practice the African Union anthem and must be able to sing it at all gatherings and celebrations,” he said.

“Africa Day is a celebration of African progress. We have a lot to celebrate and we have a lot to look forward to. It is also a day to reflect on the challenges that still remain. Africa Day is a celebration of African unity,” Zuma said.

He said this would be an integral component of reclaiming the identity of Africans and moving away from the oppression created by the apartheid regime.

“This is part of reclaiming our identity. We can’t be suppressed by the racist notion of the apartheid regime,” he said.

“Hundreds of people bused in from various parts of Tshwane were in attendance.

Among those present were the Minister of International Affairs Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, AU chairwoman Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, City of Tshwane mayor Kgosientso Ramokgopa and Minister of Arts and Culture Nathi Mthethwa.

Dlamini Zuma, who took the podium before Zuma, said South Africans needed to be aware that 60 percent of tourists travelling to South Africa are Africans who contribute to the country’s economy.

“For the past two years I have been living in Ethiopia and I have never been made to feel as though I was a foreigner or I was a migrant.

“What happened here was painful to me. We must stop the aberration of beating up others because they are from other parts of the continent,” said Dlamini-Zuma.

She said the country’s liberation Struggle and freedom are reflected by the freedom celebrated by the rest of the continent.

“Our fortunes in Africa are intertwined.

“The past generation freed us, the next generation must be responsible for integration,” she said.

Before the festivities began, people were entertained outside the hall by a group called Udumo Entertainment from Mamelodi.

The Pretoria News team spoke to some of the group members who are aged between 9 and 18 about what Africa Day means to them.

Dikeledi Mokone said the day should not only be celebrated once a year, but should be entrenched in the identity of Africans.

“We need to live as Africans and celebrate who we are every day in the way we carry ourselves and in the way we treat our fellow African brothers and sisters,” Mokone said.

The Sonke Gender Justice Project urged the South African Government to take urgent steps to repair relations with other countries in Africa, and to embrace African unity amid xenophobic violence and government crackdowns targeting African and Asian migrants in South Africa.

“We acknowledge and support minister Mthethwa’s response to xenophobia, both in terms of the launching of Africa Month as a way to promote African unity, and in terms of his comments challenging discrimination and calling for African unity and co-operation.

“However, we draw attention to the mixed messages the government has been sending about its commitment to African unity.

“It condemns xenophobia in one breath, and then blatantly stigmatises foreign nationals by introducing raids (Operation Fiela) that target them, deploying the army, and opening deportation camps.

“This serves only to deepen wrong and dangerous ideas that foreign nationals are criminals and deserve to be sent back to their countries,” it said in a statement.

- Pretoria News

Operation Fiela like ‘ethnic cleansing’

Speaking in Yeoville, Johannesburg, on Saturday morning civil society activists including expelled Cosatu general secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi, have slammed government’s Operation Fiela, as similar to ethnic cleansing.

Zimbabwean activist, Elinor Sisulu, said the operation – a joint effort by SA Police Service, the army and the Department of Home Affairs – was a kind of “ethnic cleansing” in which foreign migrants to South Africa were being treated like criminals.

“Any state operation which was the image of cleaning or cleansing I find very disturbing, and I think the timing of it is absolutely unfortunate. Even if there was any merit in the operation, the timing (of Operation Fiela) is completely wrong,” Sisulu told Independent.

“There’s been ethnic cleansing. In Rwanda there was talk of cleaning out ‘cockroaches’ and I’ve actually heard people talking about cleaning out (here).”

She said the arrest of car guards- lumped together with people carrying out smash and grabs - meant innocent people were being caught up with the rounding up of criminals.

She said last month’s xenophobic attacks were similar to the xenophobic attacks of 2008.

Vavi said he was attending this morning’s event, hosted by the African Diaspora Forum, to pass on condolences and commemorate the deaths of foreigners in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.

“We are taking the opportunity to highlight the need to continuously educate our people about the dangers of xenophobia, violence, the dangers of racism rearing its ugly head,” he said.

“We are here to mobilise our people to stop using workers from the African continent as the scapegoats to the South African challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality.”

He said the government’s response to this year’s attacks was “absolutely disgusting” because Operation Fiela showed the prejudices held by South Africans against migrant workers.

- Labour Bureau

Hostels must fall, says housing minister

Lindiwe Sisulu wants to tear down South Africa’s notorious hostels – the scene of much of the xenophobic rioting in Joburg last month.

Indunas, the hostel leaders, have warned though that they won’t be part of anything that does not guarantee them proper houses – and they refuse to go into temporary shelters while the government breaks down existing hostels and builds new ones.

On Thursday, at a pre-budget vote, the human settlements minister said told MPs during her budget vote that hostels had to go because they had no place in a reconfigured state.

“Most of them (hostel residents) have spent a great deal of their time in cities. That they may have a holiday home in Mqanduli (in the Eastern Cape) doesn’t make them different from someone with a holiday home in Camps Bay who works in Brakpan,” she said.

Hostel residents would qualify either for a state-subsidised house, or community residential unit. It was time for South Africa to shed lingering legacy of apartheid and deal with the often atrocious living conditions in hostels: “They (hostels) are a very painful relic of our past... They (hostel residents) should live as part of society,” said Sisulu.

But in Alexandra’s Madala hostel, induna Bafowethu Sokhela said on Thursday ight: “What she’s saying has been said for years by many other politicians. Right now, they’re supposed to be developing the hostel as they said they would – but they’re doing nothing.”

He has lived in the hostel since the 1980s.

“The hostel has many people living in it. I don’t think they’ll have enough space to house us all. We won’t allow them to put us in temporary homes. We want houses just like other people in the country.”

Sokhela said the government must house every Madala hostel resident before it shut the place.

“They need to come in and get everyone’s information and move us into houses block by block if they have to. But they can’t close it till we have houses.”

The decision comes on the back of the refusal by residents of some Gauteng hostels to move into upgraded buildings, renovated from the apartheid-era single male accommodation into family units since 2009.

Following the upgrade, residents had to pay R750 a month.

Hostel residents complained they hadn’t been properly consulted and couldn’t afford the monthly rental.

Diepkloof, Soweto, hostel residents took to the streets to protest over housing on Monday.

This was the second protest by the hostel dwellers in Diepkloof following a protest in the area in June last year over lack of housing.

In Parliament, Sisulu said the government would like to “gradually abolish hostels in our towns, and hostel dwellers who have lived in our towns for a number of years would qualify for a Breaking New Ground house, or the CRU (community residential units) subsidy, depending on their specific circumstances”.

She said they had agreed with the mayors that upgraded hostels would be taken over by the Social Housing Regulatory Authority.

“This we will do in every town where we have upgraded hostels and hostel dwellers have not taken up residency.”

She said the government would accommodate hostel dwellers in temporary shelters while it put up permanent houses for them.

These social housing units would be given to young people under the age of 40 and who cannot afford to buy a house.

Sisulu said the recent raids on hostels in Jeppe and Alexandra in Joburg during xenophobic violence were not because they were targeting hostel dwellers.

The army and police raids at the hostels were a result of the violence emanating from those areas.

“We don’t associate them with evil,” she said.

The minister said there was no fixed date for the plan to complete the abolishment of hostels.

Surveys would be done on all the hostels throughout the country.

Subsequently, Gauteng Human Settlements MEC Jacob Mamabolo told The Star the survey had already been undertaken and would finalised by next Friday.

DA MP Makashule Gana said houses built for hostel dwellers in Diepkloof and Mzimhlophe in Soweto were still empty after more than 10 years.

The national Department of Human Settlements is shifting its focus to mega-projects in order to tackle the country’s 1.5 million-unit housing backlog.

About 150 project applications have been received from the public and private sectors.

These would be processed to get under way over the next four years.

Sisulu said 60 percent of work would be done by youth brigades, funded by a ringfenced R159m, in an effort to transfer skills and create employment opportunities for young people.

However, the Human Settlements Department is also undertaking a review of its tender processes, described as its “biggest headache”, to prevent corruption and fraud.

A new procurement system should prevent abuse.

- Political Bureau and The Star

Xenophobic violence ‘under control’

State Security Minister David Mahlobo has assured the country that the government has contained the xenophobic violence.

He dismissed the argument by the opposition that there was intelligence failure, insisting that the genesis for the xenophobic violence was an industrial dispute.

Mahlobo told journalists in Parliament on Tuesday, before his budget vote speech, that the situation was under control after the government intervened.

South Africa was gripped by xenophobic violence a few weeks ago that left more than half a dozen people dead, including three South Africans.

Mahlobo said their response to flush out criminals, through an intensive operation with the police and other departments, had been welcomed by citizens.

The SAPS, Home Affairs and intelligence agencies have raided hotspots to root out criminals and illegal immigrants.

Mahlobo said State Security’s focus was also to monitor other threats facing the country.

“We want to reassure South Africans that the country does not face any discernable threats. We will continue to work hard and remain vigilant at all times,” he said.

The xenophobic violence had been sparked by an industrial dispute in Isipingo, Durban, where a shopowner fired locals and hired foreigners, he said.

During the debate on the budget vote, UDM leader Bantu Holomisa called on Mahlobo to tighten intelligence agencies.

He said the country was caught on the back foot when sporadic violence broke out.

Freedom Front Plus MP Pieter Groenewald called on Mahlobo to apologise to the nation for the intelligence failure to pick up the violence on foreigners.

He said the intelligence had agencies slept on the job when the xenophobic violence started.

Mahlobo dismissed claims that there was an intelligence failure, saying it was an industrial dispute that escalated into a security matter.

He added the government would deal with crime whenever it reared its head.

“As South Africa, we should refuse to be part of the unnecessary attacks on innocent people merely because they happen to be foreigners,” Mahlobo said.

“We know very well that it is incorrect to argue that crime is committed mainly by non-South Africans. Even if we suspect or have evidence that some people are engaged in crime, we should work with the police so that these criminals are arrested.”

- The Star

Xenophobia today, genocide tomorrow?

The condemnations and demonstrations sound similar to those of 2008. So what ought to change? asks Tokyo Sexwale.

Durban - The dust is settling after the xenophobic fallout over the past weeks in South Africa. This sad episode competed for global headlines with, inter alia, clashes in the US, Chile’s volcano eruption, the Nepalese earthquake and African migrant’s misery in Europe.

As South Africans, we must avoid the comfort zone of hiding our shame behind negative headlines elsewhere.

We need to pose the right questions; how did we end here again? What happened to experiences from the xenophobia of 2008, which captured headlines through the horror of a Mozambican being burnt alive?

Today’s narrative – the condemnations and demonstrations, though positive – sound similar to those of 2008. So what ought to change? Are we doing the correct analyses and implementing the appropriate solutions?

Xenophobia was central at last year’s Johannesburg summit of Global Watch – Say No To Racism-Discrimination In All Sport.

The summit was addressed by among others, President Jacob Zuma and former presidents Thabo Mbeki and Kgalema Motlanthe.

It was endorsed by several Nobel Laureates and distinguished luminaries like Fifa’s Sepp Blatter, media mogul Oprah Winfrey, struggle veteran Ahmed Kathrada, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay and others.

Although Global Watch is focused on eradication of prejudices from sport, the summit concluded that these are essentially societal evils. The high calibre of attendees was the world’s reaffirmation of South Africa as the torchbearer against intolerance, as apartheid was defeated here.

The Summit Global Charter, states: “Global Watch is concerned about the unsettling and rising trend of social evils… undermining our common humanity.

“These negatives take the form of inter alia – racial bigotry, cultural divisions, gender discrimination, religious intolerance, ethnic strife, nationalistic hatred and xenophobia.”

Thus in dealing with the current situation, a leaf may be taken from the proposed three sets of measures adopted at the summit. These are Education-Awareness-Advocacy; Monitoring-Analysing-Prevention; Cautions-Sanctions-Legal Action.

Today many are posing the same question: What is wrong in South Africa? They also recall that the world had in 2001 assembled here for the UN World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance” which produced the UN Durban Declaration.

Thus the world is, indeed, justified in expressing grave concern about the turn of events.

However, we can state, unequivocally, that constitutionally and institutionally South Africa still remains very much opposed to racism and all prejudices.

Unlike the apartheid crime which was government driven, the government is opposed to xenophobia.

The few criminal elements who take advantage of the misery of the poor in South Africa, including economic immigrants, have no place in our society.

The communities, civil society and government, as recently seen, showed a united front against xenophobia.

Law enforcement agencies are acting against perpetrators.

The concern is that of low numbers of convictions by the justice system. This ought to change drastically.

Notwithstanding, the following issue arises: Despite South Africa being signatory to international protocols protecting refugees, is the policy of border controls and management being appropriately implemented? Concerning the possible increased inflow of desperate migrants, like in Europe, what plans are there to address the potential refugee crisis to prevent future xenophobic incidents?

Regarding the thorny issue of the “rampaging-rhino-in-the-room,” three questions arise: First, hasn’t the time arrived, in all sincerity, to cast the searchlight upon the man-made inhumane conditions prevalent in the countries from where people are fleeing into South Africa; and also into Europe from the African continent?

Second, is it not about time to similarly focus the spotlight upon those responsible for creating such conditions?

Third, should perpetrators continue to enjoy the limelight despite numerous condemnatory resolutions of international organisations, such as the UN and the AU?

Indeed, South Africa owes its development to many nationalities from across the world.

Some arrived as colonialists, others as economic migrants and others as refugees. However, it has mainly been developed upon the cheap labour of its own people and of fellow Africans.

On achieving independence, African states, like others elsewhere, also provided support to South Africans who fled from the apartheid regime.

This history must never be forgotten. The ignorant need to be educated. Hence the call for African solidarity and unity.

Today xenophobia targets those from outside national borders.

Next, those outside provincial ones.

Someday those outside tribal boundaries. It knows no borders...

The grim lessons of Rwanda still haunt us. The xenophobia of today is the genocide of tomorrow. Those who fail to heed the lessons of history are doomed to repeat its terrible mistakes.

The powerful words of Nelson Mandela should be heeded.

“Never, never, never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another and suffer the indignity of being the skunk of the world! Let freedom reign. The sun shall never set on so glorious a human achievement. God bless Africa.”

* Tokyo Sexwale is president of Global Watch.

** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.

- Daily News