Anti-foreigner violence spreads in South Africa

Zimbabwean Gina Themba nursed her 2-week-old daughter on the floor of a room at a police station in Johannesburg on Monday. She said neighbors she had lived next to the past three years broke into her house overnight and demanded she leave. She said she did not understand why.

Such scenes were repeated in pockets across the Johannesburg region. Foreigners fled to police stations, churches and community halls. At one police station-turned-refugee camp, a young man wandered with a loaf of bread and a knife, selling slices for about 15 U.S. cents each, in a display of the kind of immigrant entrepreneurship that has sparked resentment.

Vincent Williams, head of an immigration research project of the independent Institute for Democracy in South Africa, said accusations that immigrants take jobs from natives or are responsible for crime are heard around the world.

He said it was rare for such sentiment to erupt into sustained violence, but this was not the first time it has done so in South Africa. The last serious outbreak was just after apartheid ended in 1994.

“We’ve known for quite awhile that levels of xenophobia in South Africa are high,” Williams said. He said speculation about the reasons has touched on the isolation created by apartheid as well as fears the institutionalized racism of the past has left even black South Africans suspicious of black foreigners.

Zimbabweans, Malawians, Mozambicans and others from elsewhere in Africa have been the main targets of the violence.

President Thabo Mbeki said Sunday that he would set up an expert panel to investigate.

Williams said the panel should probe whether the violence has been orchestrated, perhaps by an as yet unknown anti-immigrant group. He also called for a public awareness campaign to ensure immigrants as well as native-born South Africans understand their rights, and underlines that while immigrants may take jobs here, they also buy South African goods and services and pay taxes.

Some South Africans were moved to help foreigners, dropping by the impromptu shelters with food, clothing, blankets and other donations. Lisa Letsoso, an 18-year-old South African living in the Ramaphosa squatter district, was up all night working with church groups distributing aid to people who had fled to Reiger Park.

“The South Africans are fighting the foreigners. Now the foreigners are fighting back,” Letsoso said. “Everyone is suffering.”

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