KwaZulu-Natal has coughed up at least R1 million in transport costs to repatriate foreign nationals in the province to their countries of origin.vBetween 700 and 800 refugees had already been sent home, mainly to Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi, said the head of the eThekwini Municipality’s international and governance relations, Eric Apelgren.

The Cape High Court landed the final nail in the coffin of vitamin salesman Matthias Rath’s South African operations and delivered a blow to organisations peddling untested remedies when it ruled that the German doctor’s clinical trials were unlawful.

Foreign nationals displaced by xenophobic violence and sheltering in a temporary camp near Cape Town, South Africa, have threatened mass suicide to draw attention to their plight. Soetwater camp, 30 km south of Cape Town, has become home to over 4,000 foreign nationals displaced by the violence that has driven tens of thousands from their homes and left over 60 dead.

At least 21 of the 62 people who died in the recent xenophobic violence were South African citizens, government communications head Themba Maseko said on Thursday.
The inter-ministerial task team had reported to Cabinet at its meeting on Wednesday, and indicated that 62 people lost their lives during the senseless violence, he told a media briefing at Parliament.

Seven years after effectively being dismissed by the Mpumalanga health department for supporting the dispensing of anti-retrovirals for rape survivors, Dr Malcolm Naude is fighting for the rights of all public service doctors and nurses to follow their conscience when treating patients.

South African health officials have failed to advocate for more free water while efforts to improve sanitation have been undermined by lack of funds, resulting in high levels of disease and mortality mainly among the poor. This is according to Professor David Sanders, head of the School of Public Health at the University of the Western Cape and one of the world’s public health leading experts.

Government is considering declaring a national day of healing to enable the nation to pay its respects to all those who lost their lives during the recent attacks on people from other countries. The day will not be a public holiday, but a normal working day.

Women’sNet, a feminist organisation, is looking for a youthful and energetic woman to join our hard working team. The incumbent will manage the Girls’Net project, and will therefore need to have a combination of project management skills, content development skills and interpersonal skills suitable to working with girls. The position is based at Women’sNet’s office in Newtown, Johannesburg.

"As for Malawians, talk of regional integration is merely a joke as they visit the holding centre in Blantyre, to see if their relations are among the returnees." Akwete Sande gives a Malawian perspective on the xenophobic violence in South Africa.
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The recent xenophobic attacks on foreign nationals in South Africa particularly Malawians, Zimbabweans and Mozambiquans have taught several lessons to leaders of Southern Africa.

The first lesson is that their so-called regional integration is an empty message that helps nobody. The people on the ground are hardly affected by their lofty goals of uniting the region, says Joseph Ndhlovu 27, a Johannesburg high school teacher who was among the returnees in the first of the seven buses evacuating over 15,000 Malawians from South African two weeks ago.

Ndhlovu is a second generation resident, born in South Africa of Malawian parents and has never been to Malawi.

“I went to school in Zimbabwe and moved back to South Africa 8 years ago. My parents are buried in South Africa. I don’t know anyone in Malawi,” he says.

According to social welfare officials who are running a temporary holding centre for the returnees in the commercial city Blantyre, people like Ndhlovu will need long term assistance while trying to locate their kin. That means that the government which has already spent a fortune transporting them from South Africa will have to dig deeper into its coffers.

There are many like Ndhlovu among the bitter returnees because Malawi, one the poorest of colonial Africa, used to be the source of cheap labour for the more affluent colonies in Southern Africa. Zimbabwe and South Africa were the favoured destinations due to their better economies.

Mozambiquans and Malawians have until recently have been credited for hard work and honesty. In fact, the first president of Malawi, Hastings Banda, worked in the Johannesburg mines in the 1920s before embarking on a long educational career in the USA and UK

According to the ministry of labour, organized recruitment of Malawians to work in the mines was a source of revenue not only for the illiterate Malawians most of whom managed to build decent houses upon return but for government also.

These organized recruitment ended in the 1980’s after most of the Malawians were accused of spreading HIV to South African nationals because as migrant labourers they were not allowed to bring their spouses.

But the trek Southwards was never been curbed, many Malawians continued to go South and in some cases professionals disappointed with poor working conditions at home made South Africa their new home.

Mary a mother of 3 who arrived home with a small bag of clothes narrates her ordeal.

“Both my husband and I were working. We were in South Africa for 9 years, and built our own house. In the fateful day, my husband was working night shift and I was alone with our three kids. I heard a nock and when I opened the door I found five people armed, they were my neighbours but they ordered me out, told me to run away or else they would kill me. I pleaded with them to allow me stay for the night but they refused. I managed to take my children out and run to the nearest Police station. For three days we had no food until social workers came to our rescue. I have not heard from my husband. I don’t know what happened to him,” she laments.

Unlike Ndhlovu Mary had relatives who came to pick her up and took her back to Zomba, about 100 Km from Blantyre.

The Chairperson of Malawi Human Rights Consultative Committee, Undule Mwakasungura and the Director of Malawi Human Rights Commission, Dorothy Nyasulu issued statements condemning the attacks. They also organized a demonstration against the xenophobic attacks and petitioned the South African ambassador to compensate the victims.

The South African ambassador described the events in her country as embarrassing.

The media reports that over 60 lives have been lost and 250000 displaced but Malawians are not sure how many of their kin have died. The initial figure was five, but it is unclear how many lost their lives.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs says it has no figures accounting for the number of Malawians living in South Africa because most of them do not register with the embassy.

A human rights activist who once worked at the Malawi embassy in Pretoria says Malawians never report to the embassy because they have bitter memories from when security agents used to harass them and accuse them of working with rebels during the regime of Kamuzu Banda. He says most of Malawian embassies back then were full of security personnel and hence people stayed away. “At one time we had four police officers at the embassy, we didn’t know their work nor did we interact with them. This was true of all Malawian embassies” he said.

The South African media has blamed the country’s security chiefs for failing to notice that there was growing tension in the townships. The South Africans accuse foreigners of taking their jobs, fueling crime, taking their women and of prospering at their expense. Some have blamed Thabo Mbeki for fueling these sentiments through his policy of quiet diplomacy over the economic and political problems in neighbouring Zimbabwe.

An editorial in a local Malawian daily paper argued that careless statements by Mbeki did not help matters because one wonders - if indeed there is no crisis in Zimbabwe why would 3 million Zimbabweans flock to South Africa?

The media argues too that the huge influx of Zimbabweans in South Africa was bound to create problems and that regional leaders are to blame for the mayhem.

Andrew Phiri, a Malawian who has lived in both South Africa and Botswana [another country renowned for anti-foreign sentiments] says these kind of attacks have always happened but on a smaller scale but usually targeted at Zimbabweans.

“There have been sporadic attacks but not to the level we have seen today. Our leaders need to resolve the Zimbabwean problem or else the region remains sitting on a time bomb. South Africans cannot expect to prosper when neighbours are suffering. What if the nationals of neighbouring countries seek revenge? South Africa has huge investments in the region and its nationals are there - will they be safe if there are revenge attacks?” he argues.

While the economy of Malawi appears to be flourishing, unemployment is said to be high. Little manufacturing is taking place as the country continues to be a huge market for imports. This means that for considerable amount of time, the country’s youths will continue to pursue greener pastures abroad. South Africa, despite the current problems will still be an attractive destination.

“I will wait for some time but I will be going there again. Malawians gardeners, cooks and tailors are always in demand there. Even if I worked hard here I can never dream of buying a TV and subscribing to DStv [a satellite television]. What has happened should be regarded as an accident,” says, Francis who refused to disclose his last name.

Francis has lived in the most volatile township - Alexandra in Johannesburg. He too blames president Mbeki for the current problems. He discloses that tension started when Mbeki said there was no crisis in Zimbabwe. The locals started telling Zimbabweans and others to go back to their countries since there was no crisis.

“Though it appears they targeted Malawians, Mozambiquans and Zimbabweans, it should be known that there are other nationals that speak the same languages as South Africans while others from Kenya, Nigeria etc live in big suburbs away from the poverty” he says.

Some employers have hinted that foreign workers are hardworking and they hope the situation will return to normal and the foreigners will return. But such sentiments are usually discounted by union leaders who feel some employers want foreign staff purely to exploit them because they are desperate to have food and shelter and they don’t bargain for better terms.

As for Malawians, talk of regional integration is merely a joke as they visit the holding centre in Blantyre, to see if their relations are among the returnees.

*Akwete Sande is a freelance journalist based in Blantyre, Malawi.

*Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

What happens when dreams are deferred and social movements all offer a neo-liberal vision? For Kola Ibrahim, South Africa is the answer.

For more than a week, a series of xenophobic attacks were launched against the foreigners by a desperate layer of the poor population of South Africa. According to reports, more than 50 persons were killed while hundreds were forced to flee their homes. Foreigners attacked included Nigerians, Zimbabweans, among others. But, the major rallying point of these desperate poor youth of Africa is that they need jobs, and the little jobs they have are being taken by the foreigners. These racist attacks in South Africa resemble the racist and far-right attacks on immigrants and other peoples in Europe and America. In as much as one cannot give any iota of support to this backward and reactionary act of a few, it is necessary to place the blame directly where it belongs.

In the first instance, it should be stated that the basis of the xenophobic attacks is to be found in the extreme poverty the South African poor population has been subjected to since the fall of apartheid. The clamour for jobs is just a reflection of growing poverty and privation. Xenophobia is the echo of a massive anger growing within the South African society. Despite the claim of increased investment and economic growth, more and more South Africans are being deprived of their daily needs while the white minority rule has been replaced by capital rule of the working majority. Following the end of apartheid, millions of poor South Africans expected a better living under their own, but the almost eight years of Mbeki rule has dashed these hopes. In the name of improvement foreign direct investment, neo-liberal economic policies were introduced vis-à-vis cut in social spending which has seen the budget for education and health care (in a country with one of the highest AIDS/HIV record), commercialization of social services (public houses, water, etc) privatization of public utilities like electricity, retrenchment among other things.

These policies tagged under Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) programme (the sister programme of Nigeria's NEEDS) have collectively meant joblessness, evictions and increased poverty. According to a 2002 report by Municipal Service Project, an estimated 10 million have had their electricity and water cut off for non-payment, two million have been evicted on this and other sundry reasons while 1.5 million have had their property seized for the same reason. In fact, fifty percent of those in arrears said they could not afford to pay no matter how much they try. Furthermore, only half of the 40 million population has access to flushing toilets while 10 percent have no access to any form of toilet at all. In 2002, through the privatization and commercialization policies of the ANC government, 200 lives were lost to cholera (the highest in the country’s history). And the introduction of water charges in Kwa Zulu Natal district has forced two thirds of the population to resort to rivers and dams for water, with the consequent health implications. Since the ANC government came to power more than a million jobs have been lost while job creation has simply dwindled.

The overall result of this is a growing poverty with over 30 percent of the population living on less than $0.9 a month while more than 70 percent live on less than $35 a month. Yet more public utilities have been handed over to private firms at rock bottom prices, a situation which has further increased the inequality level in the country. Already, more than 40 percent of the population is jobless. The situation has in fact worsened since these facts were collated.

In this kind of situation, one could only expect a growing frustration and anger. The question however is why were foreigners targeted by the angry and frustrated youth. The emergence of majority rule led to much expectation by the South African population. Unfortunately, more than ten years after, aside a few billionaires and an insignificant middle class, most of the South Africans have seen their living standards declining. Though, some foreigners usually make it in South Africa (as a result of the fact that some of them are qualified prefessionals), many foreigners are also poor especially those who left their countries due to political and social strife. As a result of this growing misery, many South Africans have been looking for a way out.

The ruling ANC has stifled dissenting views within the party. This coupled with the alliance of the major opposition groups - the central trade union, COSATU and the Communist Party (which has in the real sense turned to the right) has denied most South Africans a vehicle to demand for change. The central trade union has been diverting the mass anger to safe mode which has made many to lose hope in the possibility of the labour movement driving cahnge. Furthermore, more and more sectors of the economy are being handed over to the private sector all in a bid to weaken the mass movement. It is the summation of all this that led to the current crisis. As the legendary Polish revolutionary, Rosa Luxembourg once said that 'it is either socialism or capitalist barbarism".

It is also important to mention the contribution of he Mbeki/ANC government's foreign policy. It is a known fact that Mbeki government is giving silent support to the tyrannical Mugabe government in Zimbabwe, which has led to tens of thousands of political refugees fleeing to South African shanties. This has added further pressure on the dilapidating public service and utilities. Immigration, rather than generating brotherly support and affection ,will only generate xenophobia and the growth of racism.

It is noteworthy that the xenophobic attacks occur in the shanties areas of the country where stark poverty prevails. It is in this areas that most of the foreigners are residing as they attempt to escape from the neo-liberal misery they face in their countries. For instance in Nigeria, millions are still living in poverty while just one percent of the population is controls over 80 percent of the oil wealth. Education, health and other social infrastructure is in shambles. Nothing is working. In this situation, immigration becomes a solution. Even professionals (doctors, nurses, engineers, etc) are leaving the country to better their lots.

According to IFAD, "three fourths of poor people in Western and Middle Africa — an estimated 90 million people — live in rural areas and depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. One in five lives in a country is affected by warfare." The common denominator in all these African countries is the implementation of neo-liberal economic policies such as privatization which lead to growing economic misery for the vast majority of the citizenry.

Growing economic misery in the absence of political alternatives for the masses can only fuel reactionary, backward ideas like racism. It is a reality that the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Stalinism - a grotesque caricature of genuine ideas of Marxism - has led to many worker organizations succumbing to the ideas of capitalist neo-liberalism, thus denying the poor masses an alternative to the capitalist policies. Most labour movement leaderships - from South Africa to Nigeria, Kenya, Botswana, etc - serve as a stabilizing force for capitalism.

But the masses are ready to struggle for change. The recent protests against food prices have confirmed this. However, the absence of a viable political structure that will translate the anger of the masses into a radical political change is frustrating the masses. Unless radical, democratic mass political parties with genuine socialist ideas are founded in every African country and coupled with a genuine working people's solidarity, xenophobia and ethnic violence will never stop. The current capitalist governments in Africa have shown that they cannot move Africa forward. They will not even use Africa’s enormous resources (human, material, monetary and natural) to fund social services. This is South Africa’s long-term lesson.

*Kola Ibrahim is a Member of the Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM), Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.

*Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

More than 400,000 HIV-positive South Africans have begun antiretroviral treatment (ART) since the government launched its programme in 2004. But this impressive-sounding figure still only represents one third of the estimated number of people in need of treatment, and that number is expanding by an additional half a million people every year.

While public health experts in South Africa spent much of the last decade focusing on controlling infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS and eradicating malnutrition, the growth of another public health crisis has gone almost unnoticed. High obesity levels, which have given rise to a virtual epidemic of non-communicable diseases like diabetes and hypertension, are finally grabbing attention.

The South African authorities have begun moving nearly 10,000 immigrants, forced out by xenophobic violence, into camps on the outskirts of Johannesburg. Dozens of buses provided by the UN's refugee agency began transporting immigrants into relief camps after they had spent up to three weeks in community centres, churches and shelters.

One can understand the rage, pain, and disappointment, that informs Pius Adesanmi’s but a cooler, more dispassionate view of South Africa may have cast more light on the issue For all his preamble about making ‘psychic’ reconnection to Africa and escaping the dominant racial generalisations about Africa in the West, Adesanmi shows a marked inability to escape these very race stereotypes. Perhaps this is part of the point he wishes to make but he shows a surprising willingness to reproduce these stereotypes. When he encounters the squalor and danger of inner city Johannesburg he can only recount his experience in the very race terms he condemns earlier.

Does Adesanmi not know that other cities in Africa and the world have mugging, violence and robbery on an almost equal scale. Has he been to Lagos recently? Yet Adesanmi’s fixation on race – all those inscrutable black faces - does not allow him to recognise or indeed consider the new demographic pressures on the limited public and social infrastructure in Johannesburg; a city that draws poor Africans not only from the immediate surrounding area but also a large regional hinterland extending beyond the Equator. Population pressure on infrastructure in African cities built for small affluent white colonial populations are not new.

Adesanmi then goes on to imply that Nigeria liberated South Africa single handed with little help. This would be news to South Africans and many other Africans. Yes, Nigeria did contribute significantly to the liberation of southern Africa. But its role – somewhat belated - was not the key defining moment for South Africa’s long struggle. The frontline states – particularly Mozambique and Tanzania – contributed more over a longer period. Yes, the struggle to overcome apartheid seized the imagination of young informed Nigerians but it also captured the attention of whole generation of Africans, inspiring music, literature, art and politics across the continent. It did not capture of the imagination of Nigerians alone.

The xenophobia that drives everyday urban life and current disturbances are not a new phenomenon and probably have deep roots in Apartheid South Africa. The South African view of ‘Africans’ who come from north of the Limpopo as ‘black’, physically repellent and possessed of incomprehensible and inelegant languages is not new. Indeed the word ‘ African’ is a historically ambiguous term in South Africa, freighted with all the contempt and violence of Apartheid. The conflicts and competitiveness of post Apartheid South Africa have only added new hostility to old contempt ‘Insider/outsider’ or ‘native/stranger’ strife is one of the perennial and defining binaries of African politics. The fact that Black South Africans have turned on other Africans is a sad surprise – we expected more of them - but, on reflection, it is not a million miles away from the ethnic clashes in Kenya earlier this year or the anti- Ibo pogroms in Nigeria in the 1960’s.

Informed Africans from other parts of the continent should recognise that South Africa – culturally, socially, economically and politically - is very much part of the rest of Africa; challenges, dilemmas and hopes. We should appreciate this even though South Africans seem unable to realise this.

The ANC Youth League, AZAYO, IFPYB, DA Youth, other Faith-Based Youth Organisations, Personalities and the Business Sector today launched a Youth Front Against Xenophobia through a campaign dubbed "South Africa We are listening, Africa we are sorry".

Finance Minister Trevor Manuel has appealed to Members of Parliament to give due consideration to the matter of a wage subsidy for young people, who comprise the bulk of the country's unemployed. Delivering his Budget Vote on Thursday, the minister suggested that, in the light of recent sharp increases of food prices, the oil price hitting record highs, and high unemployment levels domestically, the time had perhaps come to give serious consideration to a proposal he described as "critical".

Government spokesperson Themba Maseko on Thursday ruled out the possibility of large-scale refugee camps for the victims of the recent attacks, saying that government was in favour of smaller, temporary shelters. Mr Maseko, briefing reporters on the outcome of the latest Cabinet meeting, said government preferred to create smaller, temporary shelters that would be more manageable.

The Free State students who made the racist video are perhaps breathing a sigh of relief that they’re no longer the centre of the world’s attention. It was too much for them too soon. The world was shocked then too. At least they too know, no matter how revolting their little show, malicious prejudice conflicts with the idea of democracy and they are not alone in harbouring ghastly prejudices. They have something in common with all of us. Even a quiet prejudice seeds it’s acting out in others – its unwitting.

Community members dispersing to their vehicles after a peaceful picket OUTSIDE Anglo Platinum's PPL Mine Property on 27 May were DRAGGED from their vehicles onto the PPL Property by the SOUTH AFRICAN POLICE SERVICES. 11 out of the 15 picketers have been arrested and are currently being charged at Mahwelereng Police Station in Mokopane(formerly Potgietersrus), Limpopo.

The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), AIDS Law Project (ALP) and the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA) jointly condemn Helen Zille, the Mayor of Cape Town, for her continued insistence on setting up internment camps in remote locations throughout the Cape Town Metro area to deal with the thousands of people displaced by xenophobic violence and harassment over the past two weeks.