Xenophobia in South Africa
Encyclopedia
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. Post 1994 and democratisation, and contrary to expectations, the incidence of xenophobia increased. Between 2000 and March 2008 at least 67 people died in what was 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.
, 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.
fled to South Africa. While never granted refugee
status they were technically allowed to settle in the bantustan
s 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.
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%.
In a March 2007 meeting with home affairs minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula
a representative of Burundi
an 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.
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.
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 have been at least a dozen attacks since the start of 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, Pakistan
is and a Somali after their shops and shacks were set alight in Atteridgeville
near Pretoria
.
(in the north-eastern part of Johannesburg
) when locals attacked migrants from Mozambique
, Malawi and Zimbabwe
, killing two people and injuring 40 others.
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
.
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.
identified three broad causes for the violence:
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.
In a 2009 paper titled A Tale of Two Townships: Political Opportunity and Violent and Non-Violent Local Control in South Africa, Alex Park suggested that the 2008 period of violence in an effort to de-legitimize the Thabo Mbeki regime and hasten Jacob Zuma's ascendancy to the presidency. Park argued that both the violence exhibited in a number of townships across South Africa and the resistance organised by residents of Khutsong were done with the intention of reasserting local control within the townships and de-coupling local municipalities from the authority of the national government, thereby exposing Mbeki as an inept leader.
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.
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.
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
.
Civil society and South Africa's social movements have come 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..
.
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..
and Philippi, Cape Town
. Samora Machel in Philippi has once again emerging as a flash-point.. In Gugulethu, reports have emerged of secret meetings by local businessmen discussing what to do about Somali shopkeepers. The Anti-Eviction Campaign has brought these issues to the open by organising a series of anti-xenophobia meetings attempting to find the root cause of the crisis.
Discrimination
Discrimination is the prejudicial treatment of an individual based on their membership in a certain group or category. It involves the actual behaviors towards groups such as excluding or restricting members of one group from opportunities that are available to another group. The term began to be...
and even violence in South Africa, though much of that risk stemmed from the institutionalised racism of the time due to apartheid. Post 1994 and democratisation, and contrary to expectations, the incidence of xenophobia increased. Between 2000 and March 2008 at least 67 people died in what was 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.
European immigration
Restrictions on immigration can be traced back to the Union of South AfricaUnion of South Africa
The Union of South Africa is the historic predecessor to the present-day Republic of South Africa. It came into being on 31 May 1910 with the unification of the previously separate colonies of the Cape, Natal, Transvaal and the Orange Free State...
, 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
Cape Colony
The Cape Colony, part of modern South Africa, was established by the Dutch East India Company in 1652, with the founding of Cape Town. It was subsequently occupied by the British in 1795 when the Netherlands were occupied by revolutionary France, so that the French revolutionaries could not take...
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 MozambicansMozambique
Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique , is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest...
fled to South Africa. While never granted refugee
Refugee
A refugee is a person who outside her country of origin or habitual residence because she has suffered persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or because she is a member of a persecuted 'social group'. Such a person may be referred to as an 'asylum seeker' until...
status they were technically allowed to settle in the bantustan
Bantustan
A bantustan was a territory set aside for black inhabitants of South Africa and South West Africa , as part of the policy of apartheid...
s or black homelands created by the apartheid government. The reality was more varied, with the homeland of Lebowa
Lebowa
Lebowa was a bantustan located in the Transvaal in north eastern South Africa. Seshego initially acted as Lebowa's capital while the purpose-built Lebowakgomo was being constructed. Granted internal self-government on 2 October 1972 and ruled for much of its existence by Cedric Phatudi, Lebowa...
banning Mozambican settlers outright while Gazankulu
Gazankulu
Gazankulu was a bantustan in South Africa, intended by the apartheid government to be a semi-independent homeland for the Tsonga people. It was carved out of the former Transvaal Province and given self-rule in 1971, with its capital at Giyani. When Apartheid was abolished in 1994, the population...
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
Deportation
Deportation means the expulsion of a person or group of people from a place or country. Today it often refers to the expulsion of foreign nationals whereas the expulsion of nationals is called banishment, exile, or penal transportation...
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
Democratic Republic of the Congo
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a state located in Central Africa. It is the second largest country in Africa by area and the eleventh largest in the world...
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 post 1994
Despite a lack of directly comparable data, xenophobia in South Africa is perceived to have significantly increased after the installation of a democratic government in 1994. According to a 2004 study published by the Southern African Migration Project (SAMP):"The ANCAfrican National CongressThe African National Congress is South Africa's governing Africanist political party, supported by its tripartite alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party , since the establishment of non-racial democracy in April 1994. It defines itself as a...
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
Southern African Development Community
The Southern African Development Community is an inter-governmental organization headquartered in Gaborone, Botswana. Its goal is to further socio-economic cooperation and integration as well as political and security cooperation among 15 southern African states...
(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
Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula
Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula is a South African politician, appointed minister of correctional services in 2009. She was the minister of home affairs from 2004.Mapisa-Nqakula obtained a teacher's diploma from the Bensonvale Teachers College....
a representative of Burundi
Burundi
Burundi , officially the Republic of Burundi , is a landlocked country in the Great Lakes region of Eastern Africa bordered by Rwanda to the north, Tanzania to the east and south, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west. Its capital is Bujumbura...
an 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.
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 WatchHuman Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo,...
report immigrants from Malawi, Zimbabwe and Mozambique living in the Alexandra
Alexandra, Gauteng
Alexandra or Alex for short, nicknamed Gomora is a township located in Gauteng province, South Africa. It is part of Johannesburg, close to the wealthy suburb of Sandton and is bounded by Wynberg on the west, Marlboro and Kelvin on the north, Kew, Lombardy West and Lombardy East on the south...
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
Cape Flats
The Cape Flats is an expansive, low-lying, flat area situated to the southeast of the central business district of Cape Town. To many people in Cape Town, the area is known simply as 'The 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 have been at least a dozen attacks since the start of 2008. The most severe incidents occurred on 8 January 2008 when two Somali
Somalia
Somalia , officially the Somali Republic and formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic under Socialist rule, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. Since the outbreak of the Somali Civil War in 1991 there has been no central government control over most of the country's territory...
shop owners were murdered in the Eastern Cape
Eastern Cape
The Eastern Cape is a province of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, but its two largest cities are Port Elizabeth and East London. It was formed in 1994 out of the "independent" Xhosa homelands of Transkei and Ciskei, together with the eastern portion of the Cape Province...
towns of Jeffreys Bay
Jeffreys Bay
Jeffreys Bay is a town located in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. The town is situated just off the N2 Highway, about an hour's drive southwest of Port Elizabeth.- History :...
and East London and in March 2008 when seven people were killed including Zimbabweans, Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
is and a Somali after their shops and shacks were set alight in Atteridgeville
Atteridgeville
Atteridgeville, part of the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality, is a township located on the west of Pretoria, South Africa. It is bordered to the west by Saulsville, to the east by Proclamation Hill; to the south by Laudium and to the north by Lotus Gardens.-History:Atteridgeville was...
near Pretoria
Pretoria
Pretoria is a city located in the northern part of Gauteng Province, South Africa. It is one of the country's three capital cities, serving as the executive and de facto national capital; the others are Cape Town, the legislative capital, and Bloemfontein, the judicial capital.Pretoria is...
.
Spread of violence
On 12 May 2008 a series of riots started in the township of AlexandraAlexandra, Gauteng
Alexandra or Alex for short, nicknamed Gomora is a township located in Gauteng province, South Africa. It is part of Johannesburg, close to the wealthy suburb of Sandton and is bounded by Wynberg on the west, Marlboro and Kelvin on the north, Kew, Lombardy West and Lombardy East on the south...
(in the north-eastern part of Johannesburg
Johannesburg
Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...
) when locals attacked migrants from Mozambique
Mozambique
Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique , is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest...
, Malawi and Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...
, killing two people and injuring 40 others.
In the following weeks the violence spread, first to other settlements in the Gauteng Province, then to the coastal cities of Durban
Durban
Durban is the largest city in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal and the third largest city in South Africa. It forms part of the eThekwini metropolitan municipality. Durban is famous for being the busiest port in South Africa. It is also seen as one of the major centres of tourism...
and Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
.
Attacks were also reported in parts of the Southern Cape,
Mpumalanga
Mpumalanga
Mpumalanga , is a province of South Africa. The name means east or literally "the place where the sun rises" in Swazi, Xhosa, Ndebele and Zulu. Mpumalanga lies in eastern South Africa, north of KwaZulu-Natal and bordering Swaziland and Mozambique. It constitutes 6.5% of South Africa's land area...
,
the North West
North West (South African province)
North West is a province of South Africa. Its capital is Mafikeng. The province is located to the west of the major population centre of Gauteng.-History:...
and Free State
Free State
The Free State is a province of South Africa. Its capital is Bloemfontein, which is also South Africa's judicial capital. Its historical origins lie in the Orange Free State Boer republic and later Orange Free State Province. The current borders of the province date from 1994 when the Bantustans...
.
Popular opposition to xenophobia
In KhutsongKhutsong
Khutsong is a township on the West Rand of South Africa, and scene of widespread unrest since February 2006. It is situated close to the town of Carletonville , in the Merafong City Local Municipality of the Gauteng province.-Riots:...
in Gauteng
Gauteng
Gauteng is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. It was formed from part of the old Transvaal Province after South Africa's first all-race elections on 27 April 1994...
and the various shack settlements governed by Abahlali baseMjondolo
Abahlali baseMjondolo
Abahlali baseMjondolo , also known as AbM or the red shirts is a shack-dwellers' movement in South Africa which is well known for its campaigning for public housing. The movement grew out of a road blockade organized from the Kennedy Road shack settlement in the city of Durban in early 2005 and now...
in KwaZulu-Natal
KwaZulu-Natal
KwaZulu-Natal is a province of South Africa. Prior to 1994, the territory now known as KwaZulu-Natal was made up of the province of Natal and the homeland of KwaZulu....
social movements were able to ensure that there were no violent attacks.
Causes
A report by the Human Sciences Research CouncilHuman Sciences Research Council (South Africa)
The Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa primarily conducts large-scale, policy-relevant, social-scientific projects for public-sector users, non governmental organisations and international development agencies in support of development nationally, in the Southern African Development...
identified three broad causes for the violence:
- relative deprivationRelative deprivationRelative deprivation is the experience of being deprived of something to which one believes oneself to be entitled to have. It refers to the discontent people feel when they compare their positions to others and realize that they have less than them....
, 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.
In a 2009 paper titled A Tale of Two Townships: Political Opportunity and Violent and Non-Violent Local Control in South Africa, Alex Park suggested that the 2008 period of violence in an effort to de-legitimize the Thabo Mbeki regime and hasten Jacob Zuma's ascendancy to the presidency. Park argued that both the violence exhibited in a number of townships across South Africa and the resistance organised by residents of Khutsong were done with the intention of reasserting local control within the townships and de-coupling local municipalities from the authority of the national government, thereby exposing Mbeki as an inept leader.
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
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 MbekiThabo Mbeki
Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki is a South African politician who served two terms as the second post-apartheid President of South Africa from 14 June 1999 to 24 September 2008. He is also the brother of Moeletsi Mbeki...
approved a request from the SAPS
South African Police Service
The South African Police Service is the national police force of the Republic of South Africa. Its 1116 police stations in South Africa are divided according to the provincial borders, and a Provincial Commissioner is appointed in each province...
for deployment of armed forces
South African National Defence Force
The South African National Defence Force is the armed forces of South Africa. The military as it exists today was created in 1994, following South Africa's first post-apartheid national elections and the adoption of a new constitution...
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
South African general election, 2009
South Africa held national and provincial elections to elect a new National Assembly as well as the provincial legislature in each province on 22 April 2009....
. Both the Minister of Intelligence, Ronnie Kasrils
Ronnie Kasrils
Ronald Kasrils is a South African politician. He was Minister for Intelligence Services from 27 April 2004 to 25 September 2008...
, 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
Helen Zille
Helen Zille is the Premier of the Western Cape, a member of the Western Cape Provincial Parliament, leader of South Africa's opposition Democratic Alliance political party, and a former Mayor of Cape Town.Zille is a former journalist and anti-apartheid activist, and famously exposed the truth...
, leader of the official opposition party the Democratic Alliance (DA), pointed to instances of crowds of rioters singing "Umshini wami
Umshini wami
Umshini wami, also known as Awuleth' Umshini Wami , is a popular Zulu language "struggle song" used formerly by members of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the military wing of the African National Congress during the struggle against Apartheid in South Africa...
", a song associated then-president of the ANC Jacob Zuma
Jacob Zuma
Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma is the President of South Africa, elected by parliament following his party's victory in the 2009 general election....
, and noted that the rioters also hailed from the rank and file of the ANC Youth League
African National Congress Youth League
The African National Congress Youth League is the youth wing of the African National Congress.-Foundation:Its foundation in 1944 by Nick Gombart, Ashley Peter Mda, Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Oliver Tambo marked the rise of a new generation of leadership of South Africa's black African...
. 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
Sandra Botha
Celia-Sandra Botha is a South African politician, who serves as South Africa's Ambassador to the Czech Republic. She is the former Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly, on behalf of the Democratic Alliance and its leader, Helen Zille...
, 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
Umshini wami
Umshini wami, also known as Awuleth' Umshini Wami , is a popular Zulu language "struggle song" used formerly by members of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the military wing of the African National Congress during the struggle against Apartheid in South Africa...
by the rioters. Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe
Gwede Mantashe
Gwede Mantashe is a South African politician, holding posts of ANC secretary general and chairperson of the South African Communist Party.- Posts :...
called for the creation of local committees to combat violence against foreigners.
Zille was also criticised by Finance Minister Trevor Manuel
Trevor Manuel
Trevor Andrew Manuel is a South African politician, currently serving in the Cabinet of South Africa as Minister in the Presidency in charge of the National Planning Commission...
for being quoted in the Cape Argus
Cape Argus
Founded in 1857 by Saul Solomon, the Cape Argus is a daily newspaper published by Independent News & Media in Cape Town, South Africa. It is commonly referred to simply as "The Argus"....
as saying that foreigners were responsible for a bulk of the drug trade in South Africa.
In KwaZulu-Natal
KwaZulu-Natal
KwaZulu-Natal is a province of South Africa. Prior to 1994, the territory now known as KwaZulu-Natal was made up of the province of Natal and the homeland of KwaZulu....
province, Bheki Cele
Bheki Cele
Bheki Cele was the National Commissioner of the South African Police Service until October 2011, when he was suspended from duty, due to allegations of corruption.. He was appointed to this position in July 2009, replacing Jackie Selebi, who was suspended in January 2008 following charges of...
, provincial community safety minister, blamed the Inkatha Freedom Party
Inkatha Freedom Party
The Inkatha Freedom Party is a political party in South Africa. Since its founding, it has been led by Mangosuthu Buthelezi. It is currently the fourth largest party in the National Assembly of South Africa.-History:...
, a nationalist Zulu political party, for stoking and capitalising on the violence in Durban. Both Cele and premier S'bu Ndebele
S'bu Ndebele
Sibusiso Joel "S'bu" Ndebele , is the current Minister of Transport in the Cabinet of South Africa...
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
African National Congress
The African National Congress is South Africa's governing Africanist political party, supported by its tripartite alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party , since the establishment of non-racial democracy in April 1994. It defines itself as a...
.
Civil society and South Africa's social movements have come 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
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees , also known as The UN Refugee Agency is a United Nations agency mandated to protect and support refugees at the request of a government or the UN itself and assists in their voluntary repatriation, local integration or resettlement to...
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..
New attacks in 2009
In late May 2009, reports emerged regarding a resurgence of xenophobic related activity and the organising of attacks in the Western Cape. Reports of threats and secret meetings by local businessmen have surfaced in Gugulethu, KhayelitshaKhayelitsha
Khayelitsha is a partially informal township in Western Cape, South Africa, located on the Cape Flats in the City of Cape Town. The name is Xhosa for New Home...
and Philippi, Cape Town
Philippi, Cape Town
Philippi is one of the larger townships in Cape Town, South Africa, although the exact size is unknown. Some estimates put the population at about 150,000 people.The township is relatively new. Along with Khayelitsha and Delft, it was founded in the 1980s.....
. Samora Machel in Philippi has once again emerging as a flash-point.. In Gugulethu, reports have emerged of secret meetings by local businessmen discussing what to do about Somali shopkeepers. The Anti-Eviction Campaign has brought these issues to the open by organising a series of anti-xenophobia meetings attempting to find the root cause of the crisis.
External links
- IOL – Xenophobia Special Report
- M&G – Xenophobia Special Report
- NEWS24 – Xenophobia Special Report
- The Times – Xenophobia Special Report
- Who to Blame and What's to Gain? Reflections on Space, State, and Violence in Kenya and South Africa – Report and AnalysisAfrica Spectrum
- Boston Globe Photo Essay
- Article on the Pogroms in Indian Journal
- Statement on the attacks by Radical South African shack dwellers' movement
- Michael Neocosmos's 'From Foreign Natives to Native Foreigners: explaining xenophobia in contemporary South Africa', Dakar: Codesria, 2006
- Journalists who documented the death of Ernesto Alfabeto Nhamuave help repatriate his body
- Helene Strauss's "Cinema of social recuperation: Xenophobic violence and migrant subjectivity in contemporary South Africa." Article on Ernesto Alfabeto Nhamuave and Adze Ugah's 'The Burning Man.'
- Reports on Xenophobia from the Forced Migration Studies Programme at Wits University in Johannesburg
- A collection of articles and essays by civil society on the May 2008 Xenophobic attacks
- Ndlovu-Gatsheni: Africa for Africans or Africa for “Natives” Only? “New Nationalism” and Nativism in Zimbabwe and South AfricaAfrica Spectrum, Vol 44, No 1 (2009)
- Rights at Risk: Refugees in the New South Africa, Honors Scholar Program Dissertation, University of Connecticut (2008).
- "A Tale of Two Townships: Political Opportunity, Violent and Non-Violent Local Control in South Africa", Alex Park's paper exploring causal factors of the 2008 violence