Dear Karl - Wamark



Dear Karl

 

The situation is painful and worrying.

 

The whole thing started in Alexander Township:

• There is an ambitious building and slum clearance programme being executed there. The development takes place block by block. As a new area is targeted for redevelopment the people in the area are moved to temporary housing. At this point only South Africans qualify for the upgraded new housing being provided, so the foreigners are not resettled in the new developments, but left behind in the temporary housing.

• People in the slums and squatter camps, looking at the better accommodation and service delivery in the temporary housing areas, have developed the perception that foreigners (through bribery and corruption) have jumped the queue for housing.

• A meeting was called in Alex to clear the slum areas of illegal foreigners by apprehending them and delivering them to the police for deportation. Unfortunately this already misguided project quickly degenerated into mob violence resulting in brutal beatings of foreigners forcing thousands of people to flee to the police station for safety. Homes were looted and burned, or occupied by members of the mob.

• The whole process was quickly hijacked by criminal elements and has become little more than criminal looting.

Then it spread:

• A rumour spread amongst the people of Ivory Park that the foreigners of Alex were flee to their area and they responded by occupying the taxi ranks and beating suspected foreigners arriving by taxi. This then turned into the same kind of beat, loot, burn and occupy operation that was already taking place in Alex.

• Similar mob violence has now spread to the townships and poorer areas of the north, east and inner city, including the Diepsloot, Thokoza, Reiger Park, CBD, Joubert Park, Primrose, Cleveland, Belgravia and Jeppestown. [My laundry is stranded because the lady who owns the laundry shop lives in Jeppe and has been told that if she opens her shop she will be beaten; I visited it last night and looked longingly through the window as it sat clean and neatly folded in its basket; so near yet so far].

• In one East Rand township (Ramaphosa Township?) Mozambicans have been fighting back, and there have been gun fights between locals and them.

• In some areas where Sothos are the majority they have driven out Zulus, while in others where Zulus are in the majority Sothos have been driven out.

• Everywhere where violence has emerged unfortunate Shangaans and Tsongas have been targeted (sometimes perhaps because of their dark skins, but other times clearly because they are Shangaans) and one Shangaan was even necklaced.

• Yesterday the first incidents occurred on the West Rand near Rivelea, while townships in Boksburg and Kaya Sands erupted for the first time.

So far incidents have been confined to southern Gauteng.

 

The police were deployed in force and have been fired on with live ammunition, but have responded with restraint, using tear gas and rubber bullets. So far 200 people have been arrested for mob violence, but no one for the 22 or more murders, as far as I know. The police are already stretched and the army may have to be called in if things deteriorate any further.

 

Faith based organisation, the Red Cross and Oxfam and similar groups are assisting as best they can the (at least) 10 000 refugees in the East Rand alone, as well as elsewhere.  In Reiger Park people invited refugees to stay in their homes.

 

No one foresaw anything like this, no one was prepared and the response from government structures to the humanitarian crisis has been slow and hopelessly inadequate.

 

All the South Africans I have spoken to about the situation are horrified and appalled, no one can believe that this is happen in South Africa. The guy who does the gardening at EISA told me that his community in a Vereeniging township called a meeting at which the residents resolved to resist any effort to marginalize or drive out foreigners living among them. He, himself, is terrified because although he is South African his skin is very dark and can easily be labeled a foreigner, with dire consequences. He and Numsa (the terror of Beryl Court) blame the Zulus as the instigators. The guy I catch the bus with blames the government for not controlling immigration properly.

 

The IFP has condemned the violence in the strongest possible terms, but the fact is that in all the areas that problems have emerged there is a very strong IFP presence, usually centred on hostels. Appeals by senior ANC leaders on the ground have gone largely unheeded, though they seem to have had some success in Diepsloot and Alex. There are signs that the local IFP and ANC structures are getting together on the ground to try and stop the violence.

 

Of course, our lame-duck, dithering do-nothing president speaks out strongly while sitting on his hands.

 

Obviously the people of Troyeville are concerned that what is happening on our doorstep could quickly spread to our areas. We have Jeppe Hostel around the corner and our own slums in the area between Jeppe and Ellis Park. On the other hand, the high concentration of foreigners may dissuade them from trying their luck here.

 

Of course we will be punished for our benighted minds and corrupt souls. What right minded foreigner is going to want to come here for the 2010 World Cup?

 

Love to you all

Deane

 

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Deane Stuart

Researcher (ICT), EISA

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