'We are going to burn you with tyres'

A group of foreigners, mainly Zimbabweans, are camping outside a truck stop with their belongings on the N1 near Paarl in a desperate bid to catch the first ride out of the Western Cape.

They said they had been told by locals that they, long with their their homes, would be burned after the soccer finale.

Civic organisations and churches are among those who have warned of potential attacks on foreigners after the World Cup, but police have said they have no evidence to suggest that the wave of xenophobic attacks that took place in 2008 would be repeated after July 11.

Yesterday, the Cape Argus spoke to several Zimbabweans sitting at the exit area of the Winelands 1-Stop Engen garage on the N1, and others waiting near the tollgate at the Huguenot tunnel.

They have been attempting to get rides to Joburg from truck drivers at "cheaper" rates in a desperate bid to escape what they say are impending xenophobic attacks. From there, they said, it would be easier to catch a bus to Zimbabwe.

According to the Zimbabweans, getting a lift on a truck to Joburg can cost between R100 and R200 per person, without luggage, whereas a taxi can cost about R400 per person, excluding luggage.

Some said they had been waiting for five days, while others arrived three days ago.

People interviewed said they were fleeing Dunoon, Philippi, Philippi East, Crossroads, Malmesbury and Grabouw.

The Zimbabweans claimed they had been confronted by local residents who threatened to "burn them and their homes", after the World Cup.

Families gathered with as many of their belongings as they could transport, including fridges, microwaves, double beds and mattresses, couches, pots, buckets and bags of clothes.

Tamiviraishe Mazana, who had been working on a chicken farm in Site View in Grabouw, was among the group of more than 50 people waiting outside the Engen Garage before noon yesterday.

He and his family had spent the weekend camped outside the garage. They said they would be willing to return to South Africa if there were no attacks after the soccer tournament.

"We are scared for our lives. We never know what is going to happen," said Mazana.

Rachel Gatsi, who worked in the kitchen on a farm in Grabouw, said she was told "face to face" by her neighbours that she would have to leave. "Some of them tell us, 'We are going to burn you with tyres'... We are scared; we have to go."

Tendai Kadzviti, 34, fled his home in Strand's Zwelenthemba informal settlement.

He claimed locals were "holding meetings to plan attacks".

According to Kadzviti, landlords and homeowners from who they had been renting asked the Zimbabweans to vacate the premises and had refused to accept rent from July 1.

Others said their landlords had asked them to leave because they feared their homes could be damaged in xenophobic attacks.

Shepherd Matema was waiting with his wife and 10-month-old baby. He said he had been forced to leave by his landlord, who was afraid neighbours would damage his house.

Matema said he was worried about his money running out.

"Xenophobia is the push factor. We were not prepared. We don't have enough money," he said.

Foreigners who had decided not to flee their homes and businesses, said they were bracing themselves for the worst.

In Philippi, a Somali shop-keeper, who declined to be named, said he had heard the rumours but was staying put.

Another Somali, who has a spaza shop in Dunoon, said he had not bought any new stock.

"The people tell us that come July 12, we must all go back to where we come from.

"We have a few days. I don't know what I am going to do. Where must I go? There is too much fighting in my own country. I thought it was nice and peaceful in this country."

Locals in Philippi and Dunoon said they had heard that foreigners would be targeted but could not say what had prompted the threats.

Western Cape Premier Helen Zille has written to President Jacob Zuma, asking for him to intervene.

On Monday, Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa urged Zille to report concerns about possible xenophobic attacks to the cabinet-appointed inter-ministerial committee on xenophobia, which he heads.

Mthethwa, on a visit to ward 99 in Khayelitsha ahead of a by-election on July 21, said nobody would be allowed to take the law into their own hands and that locals and foreigners had to work together.

Zille did not indicate whether she had approached the committee.

"I was approached by the media regarding my views on the rumours of possible xenophobic violence and I responded to these queries," she said. - Cape Argus

Blow a vuvuzela against xenophobia

Several city organisations were set to meet on Monday to discuss a joint campaign aimed at preventing an outbreak of xenophobic violence after the World Cup, following their reports that foreigners in townships face very real threats as soon as the sporting event ends.

The meeting will lead up to the "Blow your vuvuzela against xenophobia" campaign, to be launched on Thursday.

Africa Unite, a city-based NGO, hosted a meeting in Philippi East on Monday, inviting other organisations to discuss plans to prevent xenophobia after the World Cup.

Community leaders at the meeting were keen to launch anti-xenophobia initiatives this week, explaining that they had heard of planned attacks on foreigners.

Africa Unite has held several workshops and community meetings about possible xenophobic attacks in the past few months.

The organisation's director, Zoe Nkongolo, said the reports at these meetings, from locals and foreigners, proved there was a definite possibility of violence after the soccer event.

Last week the province's MEC for Environmental Affairs and Development Planning, Anton Bredell, met roleplayers to address fears of xenophobic attacks.

The department held meetings with both the UNHCR and civil society last week.

Nkongolo said that a meeting had been held last month at Beautiful Gate, a Phillipi East organisation, during which recommendations were made to prevent an outbreak of xenophobia.

During that meeting a committee comprising 15 local organisations was formed.

Their recommendations included the launch of the anti-xenophobia campaign, calling on support from local ward councillors and appealing for an increased police presence after the World Cup.

On Sunday, local ANC member Zola Nkomo said it was important to get to the bottom of the "rumours and reports", adding that at this stage there were no facts to support suggestions that violence would take place, nor were reasons for the possible attacks clear.

Nkongolo said that Africa Unite youth peer educators had warned that they had already had to intervene in xenophobia-related incidents in areas like Masiphumelele and Dunoon.

"This is a reality, foreign nationals have confirmed it."

At yesterday's meeting Mohamed Fatule, from the Somali Retailers Association, said: "If you don't take action, this will happen. When three customers come into your shop and tell you that after the World Cup is done, you must leave, then it's serious. Even in Enkanini (in Khayelitsha), they were trying to burn down Somali shops."

Xolile Ndzoyi, from Chuma, a Gugulethu-based organisation, said these kinds of initiatives would be the most effective, because they targeted youth, the reported perpetrators of the rumoured attacks.

"The young people are the ones doing these things. We need events that will attract them, like street football. But I'm worried, the World Cup is ending in one week. In South Africa, we always act after the problem."

Meeting chairman Bonisele Mngese, a community leader from Browns Farm, said that news of planned attacks was spreading fast in townships.

"There is the widespread rumour that after the World Cup our brothers and sisters will be chased away from South African soil.

"We have to stand up, we don't want to see what we saw the last time. Whoever is perpetrating this, we don't know, but let's prevent the coming anger," Mngese said.

Nkongolo said the office of the mayor Dan Plato and Western Cape premier Helen Zille would be approached about the campaign.

- Cape Argus

'Youths given tik and R60 to kill Somalis'

Four youngsters aged between 16 and 26 are behind bars for allegedly accepting cash and tik bribes to kill Somali shopkeepers.

The Bloekombos quartet are accused of taking money from jealous local businessmen who want the rival Somali store owners out of their area.

The young men were allegedly given guns, money and drugs to kill the Somali shopkeepers and burn their shops.

Monica Fritz, 55, said her nephew Terrance Fritz, 26, was arrested last week for allegedly taking part in recent attacks.

"Last Thursday the police knocked on our door late at night and arrested my nephew," she said.

"Apparently they had arrested another boy earlier in the week who they believed had taken part in all the Somali attacks that have been going on in the area.

"So this boy told police that he wasn't working alone and that, in fact, he and a few others had been paid by shop owners to kill Somali shopkeepers."

Fritz said she had heard Terrance and other young men were paid between R60 and R100 and given tik straws and a gun to kill or burn foreign-owned shops.

"From what I hear, the boys would be sent out with the guns which were later taken back after the mission was completed," she said.

Fritz, who raised Terrance, said the whole community had been talking about the Somali attacks months before they started.

"People talk in our area and a few weeks before this thing began, there was a rumour that xenophobic attacks were going to come back," she said.

"I heard Somali shopkeepers were being told to go back to their countries if they didn't want to get hurt.

"What I don't understand is why these people used our children to kill."

Fritz said the only explanation is the young men's greed for their next tik fix.

"Tik is a horrible thing because that is how they lured them in, the message was clear 'Drug yourselves so that you can have the heart to kill'," she said.

Terrance's mother Frances Fritz said it wasn't her son's fault that grown men took advantage of him.

Eunice January, 47, mother of Xolisa, 24, said she had only learned of her son's alleged involvement after he was arrested.

"I didn't know or suspect anything until the police kicked down the door to his shack outside and arrested him," she said.

"I later heard that he and a few others were bought by local businessmen to terrorise Somalis.

"I felt sick and horrible when I heard that
grown men used our children to murder.

"My son was a well-behaved person at home but with children one never knows because we don't know what they get up to when they are outside, so I don't know what to believe."

Bloekombos Somali teenager Mohamed Husen, 19, said his 17-year-old brother had been shot in their shop over two weeks ago.

"He was alone in the shop and these three guys came in to buy two cigarettes," he said.

"Apparently they gave him a R50 and when he turned back to get their change, they shot him in the back and fled.

"Nobody knows what their motives were because they didn't rob the shop or even wait for their change."

Shopkeeper Abdul Fatah, 30, said he has been threatened a lot since he moved to the area.

"I've been here for nearly a year and I've been getting threats," he said.

"We're being told to leave and go back home because as soon as the World Cup is over, we are going to get hurt.

"Although my shop hasn't been vandalised, I've heard a lot of things about shops being broken into and burned down.

"We are all very scared and some other people have already left the country."

- Daily Voice

We are xenophobic monsters

SA is again besieged by its own, homegrown terror

By Justice Malala: They are killing foreigners again. They are not waiting for the World Cup to come and go. They have started killing them now.

Last week, in a case that has not been reported anywhere, a Somali shopkeeper was robbed and murdered in Soshanguve, Pretoria. He was easy prey, like all Somali and Pakistani and Bangladeshi shopkeepers. Like all foreigners.

The murderers came in the night. There were two Somalis in the shop. When the robbers arrived, one man ran into the storeroom at the back of the shop and locked himself in. The other tried to run out of the shop, into the community at large. They shot him five times. He died in a pool of his own blood. They killed him for a mere R3000 and cellphone airtime.

On Thursday night, in the newish F4 section of a village called New Eersterus, Hammanskraal, a Bangladeshi shopkeeper was shot and killed during a robbery. New Eersterus, where I grew up and where, just a few months ago, the police mowed down and killed an innocent Olga Kekana, is just 10km from Soshanguve.

The village is serviced by the Temba police station, 15km away. The police were not there on Thursday when the Bangladeshi shopkeeper was killed.

On Friday evening, a friend of mine who rents his shop in New Eersterus to a Bangladeshi, was fielding calls from foreigners throughout the region who were worried that, when the sun goes down, murder walks the land.

"The word is that criminals want to make cash to spend during the World Cup. This is their chance. The attacks are picking up. Things are getting worse," he said.

Foreign shopkeepers, most of them Somalis and Bangladeshis, have been murdered in their hundreds in South Africa over the past 10 years. In Eastern Cape, the Daily Dispatch has written amazing exposés about the fear in which foreigners live.

I have heard young men talk about how vulnerable the foreigners are. Because many of them are in the country illegally, they do not have the paperwork to open bank accounts, the thugs reason. That means that they have a lot of cash on the premises.

They are unarmed and the community around them is too scared to come out and help them."

The thugs attack them because they are thought to have cash and because they are foreigners.

In one Daily Dispatch exposé, the killer chillingly intimates that foreign lives are worthless; that it is OK to kill them.

Last week, the ANC in Gauteng said that more service-delivery protests are likely in the province and that there is a possibility that they will be accompanied by xenophobic attacks in the coming year.

The spokesman for the ANC in Gauteng, Dumisa Ntuli, said the party's investigations showed that there was an increasing trend of protests that might provide fertile soil for xenophobic attacks in areas beset by political infighting.

"The report says there will be more protests in the run-up to the local elections, targeting councillors and their property. This is something that worries the leadership.

"There is also a disturbing trend of protests organised by schoolchildren. We are conducting research to look into the possibility that xenophobic attacks might happen again," he said.

Ntuli is wrong on one point. Things might get worse as the local-government elections approach, but the truth is that the killing is happening now.

And it is not just about money. The killings are happening because, as we showed in that terrible winter two years ago, we are stupid and crazy and ignorant and poor and economically insecure ("they are taking our jobs") and even sexually insecure ("they are taking our women"). And we are also inhumane.

We know not what Steve Biko was talking about when he spoke about ubuntu. We have to call this spade by its name: We are xenophobic.

The examples I make above are related to crime. But we know now that it is not just crime. It is also a misguided belief that Somalian lives are worthless. And Zimbabwean lives. And Nigerian lives. And so on. It is xenophobia.

The ANC's warning last week came just a week after the SA Human Rights Commission warned of a new wave of xenophobic attacks ahead of the local-government elections next year.

This potential terror must be nipped in the bud. There have been reports that our country might be targeted by terrorists during the World Cup, starting next week. We will probably throw millions in resources into fighting that threat.

The truth, however, is that xenophobia is our own terrorism. We must stop the attacks before they overwhelm us again.

Xenophobia after World Cup a concern

A group of eminent global leaders called the "Elders" say xenophobia may erupt in South Africa after the World Cup as jobs start becoming scarcer.

"I think everyone recognises that with having the World Cup in South Africa there are concerns," former Ireland president Mary Robinson told a media briefing in Johannesburg.

Street traders not being able to ply their livelihoods inside 2010 stadia, xenophobia and human trafficking were some of their concerns.

"We are more worried after the World Cup, the possibilities of xenophobia... construction jobs fall away and people, especially from Zimbabwe, will be looking for jobs. "We hope it does not happen and I hope more job opportunities come."

Robinson said every major event had its downfalls: "Pushing aside of small traders is one, human trafficking in the other one."

The Elders were worried about high levels of poverty, poor governance and injustice in Africa, but also optimistic and confident about the continent's future.

Former first lady of Mozambique and wife of former president Nelson Mandela, Graca Machel said Africa was a continent of contrasts. She said even though there were negatives like poverty in Africa, there were also huge opportunities.

"We must take pride that we are able to host a huge spectacle...people must not only concentrate on the negative challenges."

Former US president Jimmy Carter said from countries around the world, South Africa had been hand-picked to host this major event. "I am 100 percent confident that the government, the people of South Africa, and you (journalists) here will represent the continent of Africa with dignity, and that this will be a great World Cup," he said, gaining a round of applause and cheers from reporters.

He said Machel and Archbishop Desmond Tutu would attend some matches while former UN secretary-general Kofie Annan would attend the final.

On Zimbabwe, Carter said future in the troubled country was "very important". A repeat of the 1990 election, he said, must be avoided.

Nobel Peace Laureate Tutu said the Elders were deeply concerned about the fragility of the situation in Sudan. "With less than eight months before a referendum on self-determination in South Sudan, it is crucial that the international community implements a comprehensive strategy towards Sudan... that the will of the people is respected."

The group recommended the international community unite behind former president Thabo Mbeki, chair of the African Union's High-Level Implementation Panel.

The group had also met with President Jacob Zuma on Thursday to discuss their concerns.

The Elders are an eminent group of former leaders who no longer hold public office, and speak and act independently. In the past three years they have used their voices to turn global attention to the humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe. They have called on religious and traditional leaders to join the fight for equality for women and girls.

- Timeslive

Xenophobia likely? Letter to the Editor

EDITOR - The South African mainstream daily newspaper, The Star, of 19 May 2010 says that threats of a second xenophobic bloodshed after 2010 World Cup in SA are real and terrifying.

65 foreigners died in the 2008 hate violence. So the million dollar question is what are the necessary proactive measures being taken now to prevent another 'small genocide'? Civil society, governments, activists, media and other stakeholders should been seen now advocating and acting against South African xenophobia.

Unconfirmed reports are that in KwaZulu Natal province of South Africa, some Zulu South Africans are wearing T-shirts inscribed XENOPHOBIA PART TWO 2010. That is why some people call it ZULUPHOBIA. In 2008 the attacks were coordinated by taxi associations, Police and ANC councillors but now its being led by the ANC Youth League. JOSHUA, by e-mail - The Zimbabwean

Hate attacks may rise again

Following reports that a flood of violence will be unleashed on migrants and refugees after the World Cup, the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) has told the Mail & Guardian that it is monitoring the situation.

On Monday The Guardian newspaper reported that foreign migrants and refugees in South Africa have been warned to prepare for a wave of xenophobic attacks as soon as the World Cup ends. This followed a statement last week from the Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in South Africa (Cormsa), which said that violence against foreign nationals continues to be a problem, with at least 10 incidents of xenophobic violence already this year.

Cormsa's statement said many foreigners had expressed their concerns about threats of post-World Cup violence aimed at them by neighbours, colleagues, taxi drivers, passersby, nurses, social workers and police officers. "We are monitoring the situation in certain parts of the country where cases of violence against foreign nationals continue to be a cause for concern," NIA spokesperson Brian Dube told the M&G, adding that the security services believe the threat could be exaggerated.

"We want to reassure all communities that the full might of the law will be extended to those who continue to engage in these criminal activities," Dube said.
A Burundian hairdresser, who asked to be called Mariam, told the M&G about chilling advice a customer had given her. "She said, 'My friend, I feel sorry for you because after the World Cup you will be killed. So I'm going to give you some free advice. You must go home. It's not me but there are an organised few that are being prepared to do that to you. So when you get your money, keep it so you can go home.'"

Her compatriot, who calls herself Mushia, told the M&G that these threats have also been extended to South Africans who are sympathetic to refugees.

She said a Sotho friend who runs a stall at the Yeoville market was told: "We're preparing the paraffin and matches. We're coming to burn you too because when we have our meetings, you're not coming."

Cormsa representative Duncan Breen said member organisations from across the country have been reporting similar threats to refugees. He also said there are "indications of localised meetings in some areas" and allegations that "lists of names have been drawn up, including minorities".

Tara Polzer, a researcher in Wits University's forced-migration studies programme, said that she has seen little evidence of centralised planning of post-World Cup violence but "the idea is spreading on a local level; it's being discussed and legitimised by being repeated over and over again".

There has been some recognition from authorities but no significant interventions have been put in place to address the factors that sparked the 2008 attacks, Polzer said.

The key trigger then was competition for leadership positions, she said. "In some cases elected officials such as ward councillors tried to solidify their support base by inciting violence and by being seen to tap into a popular concern. Given that leadership is a key trigger, and with 2011 local government elections coming up, those forms of mobilisation could increase."

Clinical psychologist Johanna Kistner said she has heard similar stories from many of the refugees she works with in the Johannesburg inner city. They are often threatened with some kind of deadline -- "after the elections", "after Mandela dies" and now "after the World Cup" -- she said, admitting that part of it might be panic. "But it's so persistent and pervasive that we have to take it seriously," she said.

Police ministry spokesperson Zweli Mnisi said: "The minister has not been approached officially … If people have been threatened, they need to report it to the nearest police station. If they [Cormsa] have information that is legitimate, they must come and engage with us."

- M&G