Not A New Problem

The following chronology looks back at the problem of xenophobia since South Africa's first democratic elections in 1994.

1994

The Zulu-based Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) threatens to take "physical action" if the government fails to respond to the perceived crisis of undocumented migrants in South Africa.
IFP leader and Minister of Home Affairs Mangosutho Buthelezi says in his first speech to parliament: "If we as South Africans are going to compete for scarce resources with millions of aliens who are pouring into South Africa, then we can bid goodbye to our Reconstruction and Development Programme."
In December gangs of South Africans try to evict perceived "illegals" from Alexandra township, blaming them for increased crime, sexual attacks and unemployment. The campaign, lasting several weeks, is known as "Buyelekhaya" (Go back home).

1995

A report by the Southern African Bishops' Conference concludes: "There is no doubt that there is a very high level of xenophobia in our country ... One of the main problems is that a variety of people have been lumped together under the title of 'illegal immigrants', and the whole situation of demonising immigrants is feeding the xenophobia phenomenon."

1997

Defence Minister Joe Modise links the issue of undocumented migration to increased crime in a newspaper interview.
In a speech to parliament, Home Affairs Minister Buthelezi claims "illegal aliens" cost South African taxpayers "billions of rands" each year.
A study co-authored by the Human Sciences Research Council and the Institute for Security Studies reports that 65 percent of South Africans support forced repatriation of undocumented migrants. White South Africans are found to be most hostile to migrants, with 93 percent expressing negative attitudes.
Local hawkers in central Johannesburg attack their foreign counterparts. The chairperson of the Inner Johannesburg Hawkers Committee is quoted as saying: "We are prepared to push them out of the city, come what may. My group is not prepared to let our government inherit a garbage city because of these leeches."
A Southern African Migration Project (SAMP) survey of migrants in Lesotho, Mozambique and Zimbabwe shows that very few would wish to settle in South Africa. A related study of migrant entrepreneurs in Johannesburg finds that these street traders create an average of three jobs per business.

1998

Three non-South Africans are killed on a train travelling between Pretoria and Johannesburg in what is described as a xenophobic attack.
In December The Roll Back Xenophobia Campaign is launched by a partnership of the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC), the National Consortium on Refugee Affairs and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
The Department of Home Affairs reports that the majority of deportations are of Mozambicans (141,506) followed by Zimbabweans (28,548)

1999

A report by the SAHRC notes that xenophobia underpins police action against foreigners. People are apprehended for being "too dark" or "walking like a black foreigner". Police also regularly destroy documents of black non-South Africans.

2000

Sudanese refugee James Diop is seriously injured after being thrown from a train in Pretoria by a group of armed men. Kenyan Roy Ndeti and his room mate are shot in their home. Both incidents are described as xenophobic attacks.
In Operation Crackdown, a joint police and army sweep, over 7,000 people are arrested on suspicion of being illegal immigrants. In contrast, only 14 people are arrested for serious crimes.
A SAHRC report on the Lindela deportation centre, a holding facility for undocumented migrants, lists a series of abuses at the facility, including assault and the systematic denial of basic rights. The report notes that 20 percent of detainees claimed South African citizenship or that they were in the country legally.

2001

According to the 2001 census, out of South Africa's population of 45 million, just under one million foreigners are legally resident in the country. However, the Department of Home Affairs estimates there are more than seven million undocumented migrants.

2004

Protests erupt at Lindela over claims of beatings and inmate deaths, coinciding with hearings into xenophobia by SAHRC and parliament's portfolio committee on foreign affairs.

2006

Cape Town's Somali community claim that 40 traders have been the victims of targeted killings between August and September.
Somali-owned businesses in the informal settlement of Diepsloot, outside Johannesburg, are repeatedly torched.

2007

In March UNHCR notes its concern over the increase in the number of xenophobic attacks on Somalis. The Somali community claims 400 people have been killed in the past decade.
In May more than 20 people are arrested after shops belonging to Somalis and other foreign nationals are torched during anti-government protests in Khutsong township, a small mining town about 50km southwest of Johannesburg.
According to the International Organisation of Migration, 177,514 Zimbabweans deported from South Africa pass through their reception centre across the border in Beitbridge since its opening in May 2006.

2008

In March human rights organisations condemn a spate of xenophobic attacks around Pretoria that leave at least four people dead and hundreds homeless.


Sources include: Human Rights Watch, SAMP, SAHRC, Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation

Xenophobia in Jeppestown
by nico Tuesday, May. 20, 2008 at 3:59 PM


The upsurge of xenophobic violence started last week in Alexandra reached the centre of Johannesburg city this weekend. Foreigners have been evacuated from the city centre to find shelter in the Jeppestown police station parking lots.




JOHANNESBURG - The singing could be heard from early this morning. A group of young men bristling with sticks and beer bottles were roving the street chorusing the song 'umshini wam'. They had spent their night intimidating and beating foreigners living in the street. By the afternoon, tensions were running high as residents stood on the pavements watching the extrication of foreign nationals. The police arrived, their shotgun barrels leaning out the open windows of their vehicles. As they stepped out, demonstrating to all onlookers that their shotguns were loaded, a few residents made their ways to their rooms to retrieve what they could carry and under police supervision, retreated from their homes. Packed tightly into the awaiting police vans, their faces betrayed only silent defeat. Onlookers jeered and whistled, young children joining in to herald the evacuation of immigrants from Fox street.

Speaking to south African local residents, they echo the hatred that flared up in Alexandra a week ago: a room these days costs one 1-8 [R1,800] and these foreigners pay it! They must go back where they came from! Some of the bystanders at the police vans made their message clear with keys scrawled on pickets – GO but leave the keys to your rooms.

Others like Thomas, is more diffident though weaving his sense in drunken slurs. These things must happen wherever God is – in Israel or Iraq... But we are all neighbours and can build our community to be one. He affirms that he is Zulu and has the highest respect for Zulu tradition before going to find his Tanzanian friends. Some of the residents stand by shaking their heads in disapproval of the fighting. But rejection of the mob rule is short-lived as the mob approaches and switches to encouragement.

Three public order unit policemen following the mob suddenly load shells into their shotguns and everyone scatters off the street. The bullets whistle down the length of the street, hitting the wall at its dead end with a thwack. Residents peer furtively around corners and the pranksters goad the police onward. Soon, the bullets are shot down the alleyways between the tenements but fortunately no cries of the wounded are heard. Once the police leave, the crowd returns to the street and disquiet returns.

Have the police and white South Africans fueled this violence? (The police force is still predominately white)

Fears of rising intolerance towards migrants in Italy grew after a masked group armed with sticks went on the rampage in a multi-ethnic Rome neighbourhood, smashing shop windows while hurling abuse.

In the 10-minute blitz on Saturday, the group of between 10 and 20 men attacked a food shop owned by an Indian migrant and two stores operated by Bangladeshis, disappearing before police arrived.

The assault comes as Silvio Berlusconi's administration launches a crackdown on illegal immigration, and days after a mob firebombed Gypsy camps in Naples. Last month crowds at Rome's town hall welcomed newly-elected mayor Gianni Alemanno with fascist salutes.

Alemanno, a former neo-fascist, was voted in after promising to expel 20,000 migrants from Rome he said had broken the law. Yesterday he said he was "outraged" by the attack and promised "exemplary punishment for the guilty". Opposition politician Piero Fassino spoke of "an unbelievable wave of racist violence that can only provoke horror".

The Pigneto neighbourhood, where the attack took place, is a traditionally working-class area, recently settled in by migrants as well as students and artists. It has a reputation for peaceful co-existence, although locals said the masked assailants were probably from the area.

Police yesterday suggested the trouble had started earlier in the day with a row between an Italian man and a migrant over stolen money.

"Italy is not a racist country," said interior minister Roberto Maroni of the anti-immigrant Northern League party. "Episodes of this kind are sometimes inflamed by crimes committed by illegal immigrants."

Also on Saturday, Cristian Floris, who works for a gay website in Rome, was assaulted outside his house by two men.

Fears of racist violence rise as gang goes on rampage in Rome | World news | The Guardian

South Africa riots: Mozambique threatens revenge - Telegraph

South African visitors to neighbouring Mozambique have been warned to be “extra vigilant” after pamphlets circulated in Maputo’s suburbs threatening retaliation following the two weeks of violence against foreigners in South Africa.


More than 20,000 Mozambicans have fled back across the border following the wave of xenophobic attacks on migrants which left at least 52 dead, hundreds injured and many thousands homeless.

As Mozambique authorities established a tented camp as a temporary home for returning residents on the outskirts of the capital, President Armando Guebuza urged his people “not to react with hatred” against South Africans.

For several days, pamphlets and e-mails circulating in Maputo have been calling on Mozambicans to avenge the attacks on their countrymen by stoning vehicles with South African registration plates, boycotting South African owned shops and businesses and besieging the South African High Commission in the capital.

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