XENOPHOBIA
IN SOUTH AFRICA before 1994
From Wikipedia
Introduction
Prior to 1994, immigrants
from elsewhere faced discrimination and even violence in South
Africa. After majority rule in 1994, contrary to
expectations, the incidence of xenophobia increased.[1]
Between 2000 and March 2008, at least 67 people died in what were identified as
xenophobic attacks. In May 2008, a series of attacks left 62 people dead;
although 21 of those killed were South African citizens. The attacks were
motivated by xenophobia.[2]
In 2015, another nationwide spike in xenophobic attacks against immigrants in
general prompted a number of foreign governments to begin repatriating their
citizens.[3]
A Pew Research poll conducted in 2018 showed that
62% of South Africans viewed immigrants as a burden on society by taking jobs
and social
benefits and that 61% of South Africans thought that immigrants were more
responsible for crime than other groups.[4]
Between 2010 and 2017 the immigrant community in South Africa increased from 2
million people to 4 million people.
Xenophobia in South Africa before
1994
Attacks against Mozambican and
Congolese immigrants
Between 1984 and the end of hostilities in that country, an
estimated 50,000 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 during the apartheid system. 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 officially enter South Africa, and evidence exists that their hosts
denied them access to economic resources.[5]
Unrest and civil war likewise saw large numbers of Congolese people emigrate to South
Africa, many illegally, in 1993 and 1997. Subsequent studies found indications
of xenophobic attitudes towards these refugees, typified by them being denied
access to the primary healthcare to which they were technically entitled.[5]
Xenophobia in South Africa after
1994
Despite a lack of directly comparable data, xenophobia in
South Africa is perceived to have significantly increased after the election of
a Black majority government in 1994.[6]
According to a 2004 study published by the Southern
African Migration Project (SAMP):
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.[7]
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-immigrant sentiment, with 21% of South Africans in favour of a complete
ban on foreign entry and 64% in favour of strict limitations on the numbers
permitted. By contrast, the next-highest proportion of respondents in favour of
a complete ban on immigration 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) of attitudes
amongst 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.[8]
In a March 2007
meeting with Home Affairs Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, a
representative of Burundian refugees in Durban;
claimed that immigrants could not rely on police for protection, but instead
found police mistreating them, stealing from them and making unconfirmed
allegations that they sell drugs.[9]
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.[10]
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."[11][12]
The campaign, known as "Buyelekhaya" (go back home), blamed
foreigners for crime, unemployment and sexual attacks.[13]
In September 1998,
a Mozambican national and two Senegalese citizens 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 the spread of AIDS.[14]
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.[15]
In October 2001,
residents of the Zandspruit informal settlement
gave Zimbabwean citizens ten 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 whilst locals remained jobless and blamed the foreigners for a number
of crimes. No injuries were reported amongst the affected Zimbabweans.[16]
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.[17]
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.[18]
Attacks on foreign
nationals increased markedly in late-2007[6]
and it is believed that there were at least a dozen attacks between January and
May 2008.[19]
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, then in March
2008 when seven people were killed including Zimbabweans, Pakistanis
and a Somali national after their shops and shacks were set alight in Atteridgeville
near Pretoria
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.[6][21]
Some attackers were reported to have been singing Jacob Zuma's
campaign song Umshini Wami (Zulu:
"Bring
Me My Machine Gun").[22]
In the following
weeks the violence spread, first to other settlements in the Gauteng
Province, then to the coastal cities of Durban[23]
and Cape
Town.[6]
Attacks were also
reported in parts of the Southern Cape,[24]
Mpumalanga,[25]
the North West and Free State.[26]
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.[6][27]
The Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign
also organised campaigns against xenophobia. Pallo
Jordan argues that "Active grass-roots interventions contained the
last wave of xenophobia".[28]
Causes
A report by the Human Sciences Research
Council identified four 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[29]
- South African exceptionalism, or a feeling of superiority in relation to other Africans; and
- exclusive citizenship, or a form of nationalism that excludes others.[30]
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.[31][32]
It also found that community leadership was potentially lucrative for
unemployed people, and that such leaders organised the attacks.[33]
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.[34]
Aftermath
1400 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.[35]
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 trial and 82 had been referred for further investigation.[36]
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.[37]
Refugee camps and reintegration question
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.[38]
Conditions in some camps were condemned on the grounds of location and
infrastructure,[39]
highlighting their temporary nature.
The South African
government initially adopted a policy of quickly reintegrating refugees into
the communities they originally fled[40]
and subsequently set a deadline in July 2008, by which time refugees would be
expected to return to their communities or countries of origin.[41]
After an apparent policy shift the government vowed that there would be no forced
reintegration of refugees[42]
and that the victims would not be deported, even if they were found to be
illegal immigrants.[43]
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.[44]
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.[45]
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 the early
1990s.[46]
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.[47]
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.[47]
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,[48]
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.[49]
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.[48]
Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe called for the
creation of local committees to combat violence against foreigners.[50][51]
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.[52]
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.[53]
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 predominantly
ethnically-Zulu KwaZulu-Natal province,
rejected the statements, and had, on 20 May, engaged in an anti-xenophobia
meeting with the ANC.[54]
Radical grassroots
movements and organisations came out strongly against the 2008 xenophobic
attacks calling them pogroms promoted by government
and political parties.[55]
Some have claimed that local politicians and police have sanctioned the attacks.[56]
At they time they 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.[57]
[58]
Grassroots groups like Abahlali baseMjondolo and the South African
Unemployed Peoples' Movement also opposed the latest round of
xenophobic attacks in 2015.[59]
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.[60]
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.[61]
