FEAR AND FOREIGNERS IN SOUTH AFRICA TRANSCRIPT
TRANSCRIPT
Since freeing itself from the old apartheid system, to its credit, South Africa has tried hard to be a model of racial tolerance. In large part, it was succeeding - until last month. In recent weeks, our screens have been filled with rampant violence against immigrants, with 60-odd dead and hundreds injured. As terrified foreigners flee the country in fear of their lives, reporter Ginny Stein says South African authorities are struggling to get on top of a mounting crisis. A warning, though - Ginny's report does contain some pretty graphic scenes.
REPORTER: Ginny Stein
Today, the Mozambique Embassy has hired buses to take its citizens on the long ride home. When the buses arrive, people try to force their way on board and it’s easy to understand their desperation to leave. Among them is Domingo Christo, who knows just how close he came to death.
DOMINGO CHRISTO: I lost everything, and then me too. You see there, they set me on fire.
He was set alight by a mob which came looking for him in a squatter camp on Johannesburg’s outskirts. But he was lucky. South African security forces were nearby and saved him.
DOMINGO CHRISTO: Those who helped me, the police. They came and throw me, they put the water then they take me to hospital.
Domingo has lived and worked in Johannesburg for almost a decade. But now, like so many here, he’s too terrified to stay and wants to go home to Mozambique, even though his wife and children are South African.
DOMINGO CHRISTO: Now it’s too bad in South Africa, now I can’t live here, I know I’m losing all that stuff. But no.. I don’t want to lose my life here. Today it is better to go home.
Just last month, 35-year-old Mozambican Ernesto Alfabeto Nhamuave was burnt to death in a mob attack.
JUSTICE MALALA, POLITICAL COLUMNIST: I think it’s terrible. I think it says we have gone back to the days of apartheid. I think it is a picture that stays in the hearts and minds of people.
His death was one of the first in an orgy of mob violence against foreigners that has spread to many parts of the country. In the past few weeks, scores of people have died horrific and violent deaths. Hundreds have been injured and tens of thousands made homeless. This man was rescued after being severely beaten - the trauma he’s suffered, unspeakable. The attacks are being driven by resentment towards new immigrants who many poor South Africans believe are taking away their jobs and housing. As the violence has escalated, so too has the desperation amongst the immigrants being hunted. Matema Chareka is a Zimbabwean who was amongst the first wave of people forced to flee their homes.
MATEMA CHAREKA, ZIMBABWEAN REFUGEE: The more we see our brothers killed here in front of us, we’re also getting anxious and the more we get into it because, you see, it’s about temptation. Not leave someone stabbing me until I die for no reason. I’m not a criminal.
Observers say the wave of violence spread rapidly.
JUSTICE MALALA: I think it surprised all of us. The concern, however, is that it surprised the intelligence services, that it surprised the government.
Political analyst and newspaper columnist Justice Malala says the government should have been better prepared for how fast the xenophobic violence would spread.
JUSTICE MALALA: This is not the first time this has happened. I remember writing in 1999 about two Zimbabweans being thrown out of the window of a moving train. In 2006, more than 22 people were killed in the Cape, 22 Somalis. The government should have known about this. We hear the ministers now admitting that they were warned about it.
MINISTER: We ask you, Lord Jesus, to bind the powers of these evil forces.
Church leaders, too, have been critical of the government’s inaction. Today they’re meeting to coordinate their relief effort but they fear the crisis could get much worse.
REPORTER: You say the state has not responded adequately. You’ve called for a state of emergency. Do you stand by that?
BISHOP PAUL VERRYN, METHODIST CENTRAL CHURCH: Yes, I do.
REPORTER: Why? Tell me why.
BISHOP PAUL VERRYN: Because I think it feels as if a veldt fire is beginning to rage through the country. And from what I’ve heard from independent sources that have spoken about specific people being paid to do certain things, the intention is to move this nationwide.
REPORTER: You say it is organised. Who is organising it?
BISHOP PAUL VERRYN: That’s a difficult one to answer. I think it is individuals from all sorts of political parties, institutions of state, independent people, yeah.
REPORTER: Why?
BISHOP PAUL VERRYN: Well, because I think our political context at the moment is fluid and people are wanting to make a point. I also do think that we have not taken seriously enough the disparity between the rich and the poor and we have become more and more vulnerable as that differential has grown wider and wider.
Two weeks into the crisis, the army was called in - a move many consider to have come too late, but a major step for a nation nervous about how the sight of troops on the streets would be viewed both at home and abroad.
BISHOP PAUL VERRYN: To call in the army is a gigantic statement. I mean, it is a statement about a state of emergency. When one talks about that in international economic terms, immediately you start getting a sense that the investors are going to withdraw resources.
JUSTICE MALALA: Put the sight of the army patrolling the streets against the sight which you saw on the front page of the 'Financial Times', the 'Guardian', the 'New York Times', of a man being burnt to death by ordinary South Africans. If I had the choice, I would have put the army on the street and deal with that damage and show that I can actually deal with any flare-up of violence.
Tonight, the police are on patrol where the violence against foreigners first began - Alexandra township, in Johannesburg’s northern suburbs. Police are looking for weapons and other signs of illegal activity. It’s all about maintaining a presence in this ever-expanding squatter settlement. While the police are under instructions not to talk to the media, they are prepared to show me the epicentre of the crisis - here in a new housing estate known as Extension Seven.
POLICE: The foreigners are staying here so… they chased them away.
REPORTER: Which house? Any or just this area.
POLICE: Oh, almost all these houses.
In the light of day, life in Extension Seven seems normal enough. The local member for this area is Councillor William Cheunes from the ruling African National Congress. He admits the government and security forces were caught out by the latest spate of xenophobic violence.
WILLIAM CHEUNE, ANC COUNCILLOR: We trusted our people that our people understand democracy. We are a democratic society, therefore it would really not get to the level that people are being maimed just because for the sake of them not being South African. So, yes, it did catch us unawares that it really is at that level.
What’s helped drive the sudden shift in sentiment is the fierce competition for new government housing.
KATE LORIMER, OPPOSITION HOUSING SPOKESWOMAN: The top one is a housing allocation letter showing that a house has been allocated to a Mozambican.
Kate Lorimer is opposition housing spokeswoman for this province.
KATE LORIMER: The major issue is that there is a huge amount of frustration from South Africans because they see foreigners being given houses in Alexandra Extension Seven. We’ve done our investigations. We’ve worked out there are probably around 20 houses which have supposedly been allocated by the Gauteng housing department to foreigners.
In the Gauteng province alone, more than 500,000 people are waiting for public housing. The government maintains the houses were allocated fairly but, with the occupants driven out, they’re standing empty.
MAN (Translation): Our people don’t get houses but the foreigners do, there are many of our people who want houses but they don’t have any. This is what makes us unhappy here in South Africa, that they get the houses but we don’t.
And the resentment is not just about housing. In squatter camps like this one called Primrose, it’s also about jobs.
MAN 2: Here we are fighting with the foreigners so we don’t want the foreigners here because we have got no jobs. So the foreigners accept smaller money so that the people that are staying here are not getting the job, just because of the foreigners, the foreigners accepting the small money.
REPORTER: It’s as simple as that?
MAN 2: Yes, it’s just simple like that.
I’m taken to where some of the foreigners used to live. Anything of value has been stolen, recycled or sold.
WOMAN (Translation): There were Shangaans living over there, they took down the shacks and people were taking whatever they wanted.
While thousands of foreigners have now returned home to neighbouring countries, even more say they have no choice but to stay, and the great majority of them are Zimbabweans. Their country is in ruin and, with a presidential run-off election looming, Zimbabweans in South Africa are facing tough choices.
MAN: The situation in South Africa is now very bad, the same as in Zimbabwe. So to die in Zimbabwe is better than to die in South Africa.
The call to go home was delivered this day in person by Zimbabwe’s opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, just prior to his own return.
MORGAN TSVANGIRAI: I say this with whole heart. We are Africans. We are being divided by artificial barriers but we are members of the same family. There is no reason why a brother should hate another brother. What we should be doing is to find a solution so that those who can find jobs and food back home do not have to come and extend their unwelcome here.
But despite Tsvangarai’s personal plea, here at the Alexandra police station this Zimbabwean businessman is finding few takers for his offer of a free bus ride home.
BUSINESS MAN (Translation): Listen guys, the news I have here is that we want to organise transport for people.. We want to know who will be going to Bulawayu?
MEN (Translation): Our possessions were things like cupboards and we can’t take them with us. You can’t take a cupboard with plates to Zimbabwe.
On the other side of the station, people are keenly registering their intention to stay in South Africa.
REPORTER: People are being offered a chance to go home to Zimbabwe. Will you go?
MAN: No, no, no.
REPORTER: Why not?
MAN: It is just the same situation. Like, here and there, is the same situation. So at least here you can work other than going back to Zim.
REPORTER: Your life is in danger here?
MAN: Yeah, it is, but back even there in Zim it is in danger, because you suffer from poverty.
Regina and her 2-month-premature son are a cause celebre here amongst both the police and fellow Zimbabweans.
WOMAN: What is his name?
REGINA: Prince - Alexander Prince. He’s Prince. He’s gorgeous.
She gave birth to her son as the violence began. Her home destroyed, she has no idea where to go and neither do those helping her.
WOMAN: Yes I think she needs proper accommodation for her and the child because they cannot stay for a long time in the police station. We don’t know what is going to happen after two months or two days.
REGINA: Yes, I am still thinking 'cause now I don’t have an option. I am still nowhere.
REPORTER: If you had to go back to Zimbabwe, could you?
REGINA: Ah, no. I can’t go back to Zimbabwe. The situation is... it’s very tight there.
For the South African Government, some hard decisions have to be made about how it deals with a crisis many say is of its own making. The immediate problem is how to cope with the large number of people made homeless. But finding a way of eradicating the deep-seated animosity towards foreigners is going to be the biggest challenge.
REPORTER: If they tried to come back, what would you do?
MAN: We will fight again with them, until all the people get a job. You not stop until the end.
Credits
Reporter/Camera
GINNY STEIN
Editor
SUE BELL
Fixer/Translator
SIYABONGA AFRICA
Producer
AARON THOMAS
Subtitling
DENFORD MATEMERA
Original Music composed by
VICKI HANSEN
Additional footage courtesy of
Livhuwani Mammburu from The Times Online