South Africa shuts embassy in Nigeria after reprisal attacks
Pretoria closes diplomatic missions as Nigeria encourages its citizens to return home amid anti-foreigner violence.
Behind the #Johannesburg riots: How did they happen?
The latest outbreak of mob violence and xenophobia was allegedly orchestrated by members of the All Truck Drivers Forum (ATDF), which held mass meetings that went into last weekend in different parts of Gauteng.
The Mail & Guardian has reliably learned that intelligence agencies — which sent a briefing note last week Friday to the Justice, Crime Prevention and Security cluster (JCPS), chaired by Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula — have been investigating the forum’s involvement.
The cluster consists of the ministries of police, home affairs, state security, justice and constitutional development, as well as the National Prosecuting Authority.
High-ranking security officials have also discussed the political motivations behind the flare-up in violence, with theories that the violence was part of a campaign to embarrass and ultimately destabilise the presidency of Cyril Ramaphosa.
Despite the intelligence and warnings, these parts of the cluster failed to prevent the violent attacks and the burning and looting of shops in Jeppestown on Sunday night and into Monday morning.
On Monday, the violence spread to parts of central Johannesburg and Alexandra, as well as Boksburg and Thokoza on the East Rand. Shops, cars and other buildings were set on fire. More than 400 arrests have been made since.
In parts of KwaZulu-Natal, freight trucks were attacked and set alight.
Drivers found to be foreign nationals were also assaulted.
ATDF, which purports to represent only South African truck drivers, has dismissed the intelligence, saying that its organisation is anti-violence. Its spokesperson, Sipho Zungu, said on Thursday: “When this latest violence started on Monday we were in court, so there is no way this was us. ATDF has never even had a strike, let alone [engaged in] violence [and] looting. The nation is being misled here.
“What needs to be clarified is that ATDF is fighting for all truck drivers in the country, no matter if they work or not.” He went on to add: “The reality is that South African truck drivers no longer have jobs, and we have been engaging truck owners and government that they must get rid of foreign truck drivers.”
This kind of sentiment, and existing tensions, were worsened by political rhetoric around access to healthcare and unemployment before the elections. It reached boiling point last month, when police operations in Johannesburg to find fake goods were thwarted by shopkeepers, who pelted law-enforcement authorities with rocks, forcing a retreat.
Public reaction to this took on a xenophobic tinge, with some South Africans blaming foreign nationals for a host of problems — from the proliferation of drugs and fake goods, to crime and filth in inner-city Johannesburg.
Information shared with the JCPS cluster last Friday indicated that meetings to discuss strategy and co-ordinate attacks on foreign nationals were to scheduled to take place this past weekend. The meetings were to be held at venues in different parts of Gauteng, including the Mzimhlophe grounds in Soweto, Alexandra at Pan taxi rank, Randburg taxi rank, Ezibayeni in Hillbrow and Part Two, Diepsloot.
Foreign nationals also held their own meetings over the weekend, and discussed how to protect themselves against potential attacks.
The M&G understands that the government was concerned that foreign nationals could retaliate violently, which might escalate matters. A source in the JCPS cluster said: “If action was taken and those meetings disrupted, what happened on Sunday evening would not have happened.”
Now, Police Minister Bheki Cele has been forced to react after the fact. He has focused on the hostels this week and has had several meetings with iinduna to try to quell the unrest.
Cele’s office announced he would also be hosting imbizo, to be attended by residents, as well as local, provincial and national politicians, at the Jeppe hostel on Sunday.
Cele’s spokesperson, Lirandzu Themba, said: “Izinduna who met with Minister Cele have assured the Gauteng Saps [South African Police Service] management that hostel dwellers have been urged to refrain from acts of violence leading up to the imbizo, planned for Sunday.”
Themba also said Cele had briefed Ramaphosa on the latest situation in Johannesburg on Monday, after a visit to Jeppe hostel. “There was a Cabinet meeting where this issue was discussed and brought to the attention of all ministers, including those in the JCPS cluster.”
“The JCPS cluster and various operational structures have been meeting and engaging continuously during the past weeks — and in some instances on a daily basis,” she said.
News of the imbizo has not been well received by all in the hostel. Nduna Manyathela Mvelase, who met with Cele during his visit, said: “It’s almost as if they are saying ‘It’s the hostels and the Zulu people that are responsible for this.’”
“It was unfortunate that a fire started not too far from here on Sunday and people died. At the same time, some criminals took advantage of that fire, and now it looks as if this started here,” he said. “This started in Pretoria and there are no hostels there … All our children are unemployed and on drugs.”
The government and the presidency’s slowness to get a handle on the situation has prompted severe criticism from observers, as well as heads of state across the continent.
Two former government officials expressed surprise that the JCPS had not met by Wednesday or made any public statements.
One said: “By now you should have been seeing all the different ministers visible on the ground … The fact that Nigeria’s president [Muhammadu Buhari] was even tweeting disinformation [that Nigerians were killed in the violence] means there could have been no information from our government to affected embassies.
“When government is this silent it becomes easy for the situation to escalate,” he added.
Department of international relations and co-operation (Dirco) spokesperson Clayson Monyela said on Wednesday that the department would try and secure meetings with consulates and high commissions of affected nationalities by today.
“Dirco has not received any official complaint or inquiry from an embassy. However, we are maintaining regular contact with the diplomatic corps to update them on government’s measures and interventions to deal with the spate of violence,” he said.
Johan Burger, a senior research er at the Institute for Security Studies, said he was extremely disappointed that Ramaphosa had remained silent about the attacks until Wednesday.
“I say, very reluctantly, that South Africa is at fault in terms of how it handled this issue from the top. I’m extremely disappointed that it took so long to say something,” Burger said. “He should have spoken to his security cluster ministers and asked what was happening and given instruction and direction.”
A senior government official suggested Ramaphosa was being let down by his Cabinet, particularly in the JCPS cluster, which met for the first time on Wednesday. “Not once in the former president’s tenure would so much time pass before security cluster ministers meet and strategise. Not once.”
The Nigerian government took a harsh tone this week, saying it would not tolerate any more attacks on its citizens, and deployed envoys to meet Ramaphosa, whose public statement condemning the attacks was issued only on Tuesday, to discuss the situation.
On Wednesday the Nigerian presidency announced that Nigerian airline Air Peace airlines would send an aircraft today to evacuate any of its citizens who wished to leave South Africa. Yesterday, South Africa shut down its embassy in Lagos and several South African businesses in that country were attacked and looted.
▻https://mg.co.za/article/2019-09-06-00-behind-the-johannesburg-riots-how-did-they-happen
South African Riots Over ‘Xenophobia’ Prompt Backlash Across Africa
Pop stars have announced a #boycott. Air Tanzania has suspended flights to Johannesburg. #Madagascar and Zambia are refusing to send their soccer teams. Nigeria has recalled its ambassador and pulled out of a major economic forum.
South Africa is facing a backlash after rioters in and around Johannesburg targeted immigrants from other African countries this week, torching their shops and leading to at least 10 deaths. Now, angry citizens and governments across the continent are lashing out at South Africa and its businesses, denouncing what they call “xenophobia.”
Africans across the continent once rallied behind South Africans in their struggle to defeat the apartheid government, which was finally replaced in elections held 25 years ago. Now, some Africans find themselves in the unfamiliar position of protesting the actions of the same communities in South Africa that they once stood with in solidarity.
“The only time we’ve seen this type of cooperation of African countries in terms of backlash,” said Tunde Leye, a partner at the Nigerian political research firm SBM Intelligence, “was in terms of support of the anti-apartheid movement.”
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The current level of political solidarity on the continent, he said, was “almost unprecedented.”
The riots, and the retaliatory measures, could not come at a more inopportune time for regional cooperation. This week, African leaders are meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, to discuss the African Continental Free Trade Area, an agreement made this year that sets the stage for the creation of the largest free-trade area in the world. It would join Africa’s more than one billion consumers into a single market.
The conflict, while not likely to imperil the free trade agreement, could at least slow its implementation, which is expected to take years, African analysts said.
Nigeria’s government, angry that its citizens have been victimized in the South African riots, has pulled out of the Cape Town meeting.
Nigeria is the continent’s largest economy, and South Africa is the second-largest. Both countries were already reluctant participants in the accord, which is supposed to help knock down the many barriers to trade among African countries.
Anti-immigrant sentiment is a longstanding issue in South Africa, where the legacies of colonialism and apartheid run deep, and a political shift has not delivered meaningful change to many poor South Africans. Immigrants from countries like Nigeria, Mozambique, Somalia and Zimbabwe are often regarded by South Africans as competitors for jobs and social services.
In South Africa, attacks on foreigners have become common, and they surged beginning Sunday when rioters stormed neighborhoods in and around Johannesburg, lighting fires and breaking into shops.
At least 10 people have died in the riots, President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a video address on Thursday, in which he also condemned the violence.
“There can be no excuse for the attacks on the homes and businesses of foreign nationals,” he said. “Equally, there is no justification for the looting and destruction of businesses owned by South Africans.”
In Gauteng, the province that includes Johannesburg, authorities have arrested at least 423 people, said Colonel Lungelo Dlamini, a police spokesman. On Thursday, he said that many shops owned by foreigners remained closed and that more shopping centers in the eastern part of the province “are being targeted.”
Police seized guns, he said, not just from South Africans, but also from at least two foreign nationals.
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The rolling backlash has united broad swaths of the continent. Two popular Nigerian musicians, Burna Boy and Tiwa Savage, said they were boycotting South Africa. Burna Boy was set to headline the Afropunk festival in Johannesburg in December, alongside artists like Solange Knowles. Tiwa Savage had an appearance in South Africa scheduled for mid-September.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, protesters rushed and sometimes looted South African-owned businesses in Nigeria and Zambia, including Shoprite supermarkets. The company closed stores. The South African telecommunications giant MTN did the same.
On Thursday, the protests spread to the Democratic Republic of Congo, where demonstrators outside of the South African Embassy in Kinshasa held signs that read “Don’t kill our brothers” and “No xenophobia.” In Lubumbashi, they broke windows at the South African Consulate.
Nigeria recalled its ambassador to South Africa. South Africa has shuttered its diplomatic missions in Nigeria, citing threats.
The clashes cast a cloud over the World Economic Forum in Africa, which began in Cape Town on Wednesday. Leaders were set to discuss the free trade pact, an agreement signed by 54 countries that supporters have said could reshape economic relationships on the continent.
The accord has the potential to bolster intra-African trade by 52 percent by 2022, according to the United Nations. Right now, intra-African trade accounts for just 16 percent of the continent’s trade volume. It can be cheaper to ship something from Nigeria to Europe, and then to Senegal, rather than directly from Nigeria to Senegal. This is a major barrier to regional development, economists say.
Still, a host of challenges await before the pact is put in place.
African analysts differed on whether Nigeria’s decision to skip the Cape Town meeting would have any effect in the long term.
Gilbert Khadiagala, a Kenyan professor of international relations at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, said Nigeria’s move was little more than “grandstanding,” and that would not impede the trade agreement.
But Mr. Leye, of SBM Intelligence in Nigeria, said that in his view, Nigeria’s boycott of the Forum “will have an impact in terms of the pace of implementation.”
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/05/world/africa/south-africa-xenophobia-riots.html
#Zambie
Nouvelle flambée de violences xénophobes en Afrique du Sud
Des centaines de personnes ont incendié et dévalisé des magasins tenus par des étrangers à Johannesburg et Pretoria.
Refugees and police clash at Cape Town protest against xenophobia
Around 100 people were arrested on October 30 as part of an operation to disperse a group of refugees and asylum seekers who had staged a prolonged sit-in near the United Nations refugee agency in Cape Town, South African police said.
Local media showed footage of police firing water cannon into the crowd of protesters and arresting some of them. The South African Police Service (SAPS) said in a statement that they evicted around 300 people from the area in accordance with a court order.
The refugees and asylum seekers have been camping outside the offices of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees for weeks, asking to be moved out of South Africa, where they say they do not feel safe after a wave of xenophobic violence.
The refugees want to be repatriated to their home countries or moved elsewhere after a spate of deadly riots and attacks in September, which killed at least 10 people and left many foreigners afraid to live in the country.
▻https://www.euronews.com/2019/10/30/refugees-and-police-clash-at-cape-town-protest-against-xenophobia