”We would rather go die in Zimbabwe than be right here,” is the sentiment echoing round the Mangena Mokone Primary School.
The school, in Atteridgeville outside Pretoria, has been turned into a refugee camp after violence against foreigners erupted in the informal settlements lining the township’s western and southern edges, leaving six dead and many destitute.
Many of the foreigners are Zimbabweans, but they also include Mozambicans and Malawians. Five hundred of them are now huddled in the school building.
And now they have become a target for the police and the Home Affairs Department.
According to Tafadza Chidodo (27), a Zimbabwean handyman, immigration officials confiscated asylum papers earlier in the week and sent more than 60 refugees to Lindela repatriation centre, where they are awaiting deportation. ”Some of them [immigration officers] are telling us to go home and vote, but what about the Malawians?” he asked.
Home affairs was unrepentant this week. Departmental spokesperson Cleo Mosana said only immigrants with legal documentation would be allowed to stay at the school, which was made available by the Tshwane council. ”Not to take action against illegals would be setting a bad precedent,” Mosana said.
Ordeal
For women, especially those with children, like Siphelile Rwizi, who has two children aged 10 and eight, life in the ”camp” is even more of an ordeal. About 90 women have to share one children’s toilet, without toilet paper, sanitary pads or nappies.
How did a tiny unkempt school closed for the Easter holidays become a haven for 500 terrified foreigners? The answer appears to be a mixture of poor service delivery, political opportunism and police disregard.
The attacks in the past week were mainly directed at Mozambican and Somali-owned shops and foreigners living in a massive belt of informal settlements, including Brazzaville, Phomolong, Jeffsville and Siyahlala. At least 25 foreign-owned shops were looted and gutted in the past week.
As in past xenophobic outbreaks in the townships, the refugees complain that the police stood back and, indeed, encouraged the violence.
However, Atteridgeville Senior Superintendent John Masiya emphasised that arrests had been mounting since a task team was established on Tuesday. Brazzaville resident Ta Mtshweni said the terror spree was sparked by the electrocution of a resident by a faulty, illegally connected power line a few weeks ago. ”A meeting was called to get ‘them’ [Zimbabweans] out because they are charging people for making illegal connections,” he said.
A march to the Atteridgeville police station turned violent, as marchers turned back to the settlement to burn and loot businesses and shacks.
The Mail & Guardian saw several businesses that had been abandoned or razed, including a Somali-owned shop in Phomolong, where owner Noor Ali died defending his property, and a Nigerian hair salon in Brazzaville, which was reduced to ashes.
Response
The government has responded — albeit inadequately. At the Atteridgeville police station on Wednesday a heated community meeting attended by Minister of Home Affairs Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula and Tshwane mayor Gwen Ramokgopa adopted a reintegration plan that basically amounts to a series of talk shops.
Among the proposals for dealing with the crisis are public meetings, a mobile caravan to provide information and hear complaints and suggestions and a door-to-door campaign including the distribution of pamphlets.
Most of those present were South Africans, including NGO workers, clergymen and residents. A man in a sangoma’s sarong wore a City of Tshwane T-shirt that read: ”We are one” — yet the conversation was conducted mostly in Setswana, ignoring the quartet of Somalis struggling to make notes. Many other foreigners remain outside.
A man in an SACP cap said the attacks were caused by community leaders who manipulate the frustrations of the hungry and ill-informed. ”It’s a problem of com-tsotsis,” he said, invoking an old struggle term referring to criminals who pose as activists.
Ramokgopa concurred. ”This meeting confirms that our people are not generally xenophobic,” she said afterwards. ”There is a certain band of instigators. What we have to do now is to come up with a pattern for reintegration because a lot of people lost property. But we’re getting a lot of help from the NGOs. The community is also demonstrating a lot of support.”
One of the Mokone classrooms has been turned into a kitchen. Linda Dani, an African National Congress ward councillor, and several colleagues oversee the distribution of food, blankets and toiletries.
As dusk settles, a mood of festivity sweeps over Atteridgeville as soccer fans prepare for Bafana Bafana’s clash with Paraguay. The mood of gloom vanishes for a while as South Africa emerges victorious. But the refugees are not watching the game and their future remains uncertain.
The next day Mtshweni phones to say that another unoccupied shack had been burned in Brazzaville. The residents will not allow the refugees back, he says. In this context the mayor’s reintegration plans, he insists, amount to pouring fuel on the flames.
‘We don’t want you’
Moses Mhlanga is a Mozambican who has lived in South Africa for 27 years and has been a South African citizen since 2007.
The scars on his face are healing, but they are a reminder of March 18, when he joined the march from Brazzaville to the Atteridgeville police station, ostensibly to demand faster delivery of services.
When the march agenda changed, his two businesses went up in flames. ”I called the police before I left and they said to me, ‘We can’t be in two places at once,”’ he said.
When Mhlanga hurried back to Brazzaville, he and several other shop owners formed human walls around their businesses and were pelted with stones and beaten.
By that time a police van had arrived. Said Mhlanga: ”One of the cops said [to the crowd]: ‘Sort these people out because we also don’t want them here.”’ The police then allegedly moved off, leaving the crowd to continue a burning and looting frenzy.
Ahmed Dawlo, of the Somali Association of South Africa, also claimed police had folded their arms during the violence. ”They maintained the situation was under control,” he said. ”Even now, lives are being lost.”