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Topic: Infamy in South Africa : U/Tism runs amok (Read 732 times) |
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Blunderov
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Infamy in South Africa : U/Tism runs amok
« on: 2008-05-19 12:55:40 » |
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[Blunderov] ISTM that much of this can be attributed to the leadership failure, yet again, of Thabo Mbeki. His refusal to acknowledge the crisis, nay disaster, in Zimbabwe has led to a wave of refugees pouring across the border for whom absolutely no provision has been made. There are reports that 7000 refugees a week are coming across the border. Those few that are deported are usually back within weeks.
Human nature has done the rest.
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?from=rss_News&set_id=1&click_id=79&art_id=nw20080519170019155C501591
Police deploy specialists
May 19 2008 at 05:35PM
"We will burn the Shangaans if they don't go back," were the chilling words of a 25-year old man arrested for public violence in Ramaphosa on the East Rand on Monday as police deployed specialists to stop the xenophobic attacks that have left at least 22 people dead in the last week.
"We will fight for this country. We will keep on going, they can't stop us," said the man, speaking to reporters through the bars of holding cell at the Reiger Park police station.
By Monday morning 217 people have been arrested for the attacks, which police director Govindsamy Mariemuthoo attributed to criminality.
He said this could be seen by the types of crimes being committed: rape, robbery and housebreaking among them.
However, the man, who cannot be identified until he appears in court, said: "We just want them to give up and leave us alone in our country. That will be enough.
"We don't want to fight, but we will burn the Shangaans if they don't go back." He was referring to the Tsonga-speaking group of people, mostly hailing from Limpopo and Mozambique.
He said he was proud of destroying a few shacks in the area.
"I will be proud to meet the man who started this," he said.
The man, who is unemployed, said, "Foreigners are taking our jobs and our wives," and blamed government for letting them into South Africa.
"A lot them don't have a passport but I am the one in jail," he said, pointing at the group of adults and children who sat among piles of suitcases and furniture outside the police station.
He said his "brother" was arrested for burning foreigners in Ramaphosa township.
Also speaking from his cell, this man claimed foreigners were the cause of the crime situation in Africa.
"No more. They must go. The Shangaans must go."
Earlier, police recovered the hacked body parts of a Malawian national on a sandy road in Ramaphosa township and, near Primrose, one person with Mozambican identify papers in his pocket was found dead and two other Mozambicans were seriously beaten.
In Zamimpilo, outside Riverlea on the West Rand, at least 50 shacks were burned and foreign nationals in the area taken to safety in a community centre.
In Kya Sands, an industrial area close to informal settlements, groups of people began throwing stones at each other after a community meeting, but the situation was brought under control, said spokesman Superintendent Lungelo Dlamini.
In the Jerusalem informal settlement, near Boksburg, police came under fire as they tried to stop a group of about 500 people from looting shops there.
As evening approached in Reiger Park, local residents served tea and coffee to people seeking refuge and offered them accommodation for the night in their homes.
The engines of bakkies loaded with furniture belonging to people of Zimbabwean and Mozambican origin idled outside, preparing to leave the area.
Entire families camped outside -- women with babies on their backs, and young children who had been forced to skip school.
The Red Cross and the St Vincent's Anglican church next door helped provide shelter and aid.
At least 10,000 foreigners are taking shelter at community centres on the East Rand, said Ekurhuleni Metro spokesman Zweli Dlamini.
"The figures are escalating as people run for their dear lives," said Dlamini.
Ambulances are "driving up and down," he said, and clinics are on alert to deal with violence, as well as the medical needs of the displaced.
A joint operations centre has been set up in Bedfordview to co-ordinate humanitarian needs.
Responding to the Democratic Alliance's criticism that the government's disaster response has been slow and basic requirements like toilets were not adequate, Dlamini said they would order more toilets and other necessities.
A consortium of NGOs also criticised government's response, saying it was inadequate and the situation needed to be treated as a state of emergency.
The Treatment Action Campaign, saying that antiretroviral programmes should not be disrupted, "reluctantly" joined the call for the army to intervene.
A statement from acting National Police Commissioner Tim Williams' office said that after a meeting of top police officials on Monday, it was decided to deploy additional members with "experience and training in reacting to medium to high risk situations" in Gauteng.
Willliams also thanked the police who had been working to try to control the situation under "extremely stressful conditions" and called on community leaders to help by talking within the communities they serve.
President Thabo Mbeki's spokesperson Mukhoni Ratshitanga said the president was "very concerned" by developments and reiterated a call for the violence to stop.
"We are taking these things very seriously," he said.
Meanwhile, Rose Molape, a resident and a South African citizen, expressed anger over what had happened to her Zimbabwean neighbours in Ramaphosa, where she has lived for the last 13 years.
"They were nice people and they had to leave. They have been living here for so long and now all of a sudden things are happening," said Molape.
She said the Zimbabwean family's home was burnt down after they left.
"We as Africans need to help each other, we can't do this," she said. - Sapa
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Fritz
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Re:Infamy in South Africa : U/Tism runs amok
« Reply #1 on: 2008-05-22 12:51:24 » |
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Quote:| [Blunderov] <snip>ISTM that much of this can be attributed to the leadership failure,<snip> |
[Fritz]This looks pretty grim. How much of an indictment of the South Africa government is it really; as our media suggests ? How does this impact life in general in South Africa ?
Fritz
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/FABA26DD-614A-4C02-BEF2-B540FDC83630.htm
NEWS AFRICA
Toll rises in South Africa unrest
At least 22 immigrants have been killed as a wave of anti-foreign violence spreads across South Africa's townships.
Hundreds of people, many from Zimbabwe, sought refuge on Monday, as mobs set their homes on fire and the toll from xenophobic violence grew.
Residents were forced to flee as their homes were set alight in Reiger Park on Johannesburg's East Rand, where one man was set on fire on Sunday.
Police patrolled the township as large gangs stood around pelting them with stones and barricading roads.
Immigrants clutching belongings sat alongside the road or sought refuge at a local police station and local radio reported crowds of people at community centres and police stations who were seeking protection.
Veli Nhlapo, a police spokesman, told the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC): "At the moment, some of the people have been taken to the city hall as a place of safety, but some of them are still running around and do not know where to go."
Two people were killed and more than two dozen shacks were torched in the Tembisa township near Johannesburg, SABC reported.
There was some confusion over the death toll, with South African media reporting about 20 dead since trouble broke out a week ago in Alexandra township.
Anti-foreign violence
Al Jazeera's Kalay Maistry, reporting from a makeshift camp in Alexandra, said the violence had been unexpected.
"The police and everybody in the country was caught off guard by what's happening," she said.
The violence has displaced thousands of foreigners, who are accused by many South Africans of depriving locals of jobs and committing crime.
"All these things are the fault of the Zimbabweans. They should just go," said one South African woman whose shack was flattened in the violence at Reiger Park.
The bulk of the immigrants to South Africa in recent years have come from Zimbabwe, fleeing an economic crisis in their country.
"South Africans they are good people ... but suddenly now they are acting like animals towards us," one Zimbabwean who who suffered in the violence told Al Jazeera.
The Human Rights Commission accused the government of failing to take the swelling threat of xenophobia seriously.
Tseliso Thipanyane, the commission's chief executive, told public radio: "We got involved in these issues around 1999 when we heard of two foreigners being thrown from a train in Pretoria. We began the 'roll back xenophobia' campaign.
"There has been poor leadership in this country as far as these issues are concerned."
Thabo Mbeki, the president, and Jacob Zuma, the leader of the ruling African National Congress, have both strongly condemned the attacks.
Attached: Thought this was a different take on the story from 10 years back.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DEFD7103CF930A25751C0A96E948260
Robertson Comments on South Africa Unrest
AP
Published: February 13, 1988
LEAD: Pat Robertson says black Americans ''don't understand what they're dealing with'' in South Africa, and that he will not criticize that nation to gain votes for his Presidential bid.
Pat Robertson says black Americans ''don't understand what they're dealing with'' in South Africa, and that he will not criticize that nation to gain votes for his Presidential bid.
Government-run television here broadcast an interview with Mr. Robertson Thursday night in which he complained that South Africa had become a campaign issue in the United States.
''The blacks in this country have made this whole matter into an extension of the United States civil right movement and I think they don't understand what they're dealing with really in this South African thing,'' Mr. Robertson said.
''And so it becomes an American political issue to say if you want support among American blacks for American political office you have to bash South Africa,'' he continued. ''I think that's bad.''
Mr. Robertson urged the South African Government to exercise moderation in dealing with unrest, so as not to play into the hands of its enemies. Strategic Importance Stressed
''I think if the Government would only realize the press reception, they play into this,'' he said. ''The Communists want to incite riots and then the oppressive, truncheon-wielding police just give their enemies the fodder they need to hurt them. If they would really begin to use some moderation.''
He added: ''The media has just done an absolute hatchet job on South Africa and I think the reason, very frankly, is because the left wants to see South Africa fall. They don't want a free Government.''
Mr. Robertson stressed the strategic importance of South Africa.
''Our long-range interests are at stake,'' he said. ''We must have the minerals of southern Africa available to the West. If they fall into the hands of the Soviet Union, we will become vassals of the Soviets. It's a very important strategic matter that apparently our people just ignore.''
Asked by the interviewer what the United States wants from South Africa, he said it was hoped that there would eventually be racial equality.
''To begin gradually to bring into the political process the blacks in your country so that ultimately you have a time where there is equality before the law, equality of justice and equality of civic opportunity and that is essentially what we want,'' he said. ''What I want essentially is a free South Africa. I want South Africa as a friend of the West and a bastion of capitalism. It would be tragic if South Africa was plunged into a bloodbath, if the Marxist-led members of the African National Congress could gain control.''
Mr. Robertson said those who favor sanctions and withdrawal of investment as a means of putting pressure on the South African Government to end apartheid are ''knowingly or unknowingly allies of those who favor a one-party Marxist Government in South Africa.''
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Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains -anon-
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Blunderov
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Re:Infamy in South Africa : U/Tism runs amok
« Reply #2 on: 2008-05-22 14:27:16 » |
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Quote from: Fritz on 2008-05-22 12:51:24
[Fritz]This looks pretty grim. How much of an indictment of the South Africa government is it really; as our media suggests ? How does this impact life in general in South Africa ?
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[Blunderov] Life in general does not seem to have been much affected; Eishkom and looming Winter power cuts are much on everyones' minds but the iniquity of the recent violence has registered with most people too. ISTM that the violence may now be dying down. Troops have been deployed in a support role. Some important arrests have been made. The damage is done however. The honeymoon is very much over; xenophobia is the bloodbrother of racism and the "rainbow nation" has been exposed, once again, as being as obsessed with race as ever it was.
There have been, I understand, many prior warnings that a crisis was brewing. Essentially government seems to have decided to shrug its shoulders and "assimilate" the refugees with no regard to the additional pressure that this would place on the existing social services which are in any case not up to scratch. There have been quite a few riotous assemblies about service delivery shortcomings in the past and it ought not to have been difficult to foresee the present crisis. It should have been perfectly clear that there were too many people competing for too few resources. I strongly suspect, as I mentioned previously, that this neglect has its' origins in Thabo Mbeki's desire to play down the fiasco that is Zimbabzwe today.
Perhaps a virtue can now be made of necessity though. Here in South Africa UN aid could now be supplied to the people who most need it instead of having it coopted by Mugabe for the military and sundry favourites, cronies and fortunate sons. This course of action would however require the frank admission that currrent affairs in Zimbabwe are a regional crisis and not are simply an internal matter anymore.
Best Regards.
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