The recent xenophobic violence cannot be attributed to a single factor and is not necessarily the work of a so-called ”third force”, government spokesperson Themba Maseko said on Thursday.
Briefing the media following Wednesday’s regular Cabinet meeting, he said the Cabinet had received a report from the special task team probing the issue, and the violence could not be attributed to a single cause.
Rather, it was the result of a complex set of factors.
Although the most recent violent attacks started in Alexandra and spread to parts of the East Rand, northern parts of Johannesburg, and to a limited extent, to other provinces, it was too early to conclude that a ”third force” was necessarily behind the violence, he said.
‘Copy cat’
”In some cases, there is some evidence of copy-cat activities in which criminals took advantage of the news story to conduct criminal acts.”
The Cabinet had noted that genuine concerns about access to services, such as water, roads and economic opportunities, were being exploited and misused to manipulate communities to attack foreigners.
While acknowledging the urgent need to accelerate its programmes for alleviating poverty, unemployment and other forms of socio-economic deprivation, the government appealed to all communities to reject any agitation from those wanting to reduce South Africa to a lawless country, thereby dashing the hopes of millions of citizens.
He said the government’s response to the attacks had five key elements, the first of which was to deal decisively with the perpetrators and all those who participated in the violent acts.
The primary objective was to ensure everyone, including foreign nationals, were protected from any criminal acts, to restore peace and stability, and to ensure justice was meted out to all law breakers in the shortest possible time.
Special courts would be set up to speed up the prosecution of the perpetrators, and the police and defence force would remain on alert for as long as necessary to deal decisively with any outbreak of violence.
”The message to our security forces is clear: no violence will be tolerated,” he said.
”Secondly, we are working with organs of civil society to ensure that secure and decent temporary shelter is provided to those who have been displaced by the violence.”
He said the government would coordinate and ensure that relief efforts to the victims of the violence were provided with all the necessary support in the form of medical treatment and care, food, blankets and clothing.
The government would also work very closely with all affected communities towards the re-integration of foreign nationals back into communities as soon as possible.
Some of the so-called foreign nationals had already obtained residency status or South African citizenship.
Many of them were married to, or living with their Souh African partners and had children who were SA citizens.
For these new South Africans and many other foreign nationals, leaving the country was not an option as they had decided that this was their country of choice.
The government, together with the majority of South Africans, would protect this right and ensure that they could live in harmony in the country that prided itself on respecting human rights.
Finally, the government would continue to accelerate the provision of services in line with the ”Business Unusual” theme, as outlined by President Thabo Mbeki in his State Of the Nation Address during the opening of Parliament, Maseko said.
Responding to questions, he said between 35 000 and 40 000 people had been displaced by the violence. On how many foreign nationals had left SA and returned to their country of origin, Maseko said he did not have these figures.
According to media reports, up to 15 000 people have returned to Mozambique alone.
On shelter for those displaced, Maseko said the thinking of the task team was that ”we should try and avoid setting up large camps or shelters that consist of thousands of people”.
Rather, there should be smaller, more manageable shelters.
On the large camps that have sprung up around Cape Town to shelter foreign nationals, he said the situation in the Western Cape was complicated by ”provincial and local government not seeing eye-to-eye”.
However, the task team would soon ”give a view on what is the best way forward on the size of shelters”.
He said the Cabinet was not in favour of establishing refugee camps.
”The view is that we should not opt for the creation of refugee camps, but prefer to create temporary shelters because … every attempt must be made to make sure that the foreign nationals are integrated into communities as much as possible.”
The task team envisaged that the temporary shelters would remain ”for anything up to a month”.
On the deployment of the South African National Defence Force to help curb the violence, Maseko said elements of the defence force were on stand-by, subject to their being called to duty by the South African Police Service. Deployment could be ”to any part of the country”.
‘Doing their best’
On whether there was a failure by intelligence agencies to warn of the violence, Maseko said Cabinet believed these agencies were ”doing their best”, and the fact they were not able to tell when the violence would start ”does not necessarily amount to a major intelligence failure”.
Maseko said Cabinet had expressed appreciation to the many South African and civil society organisations that had demonstrated selfless compassion towards the victims of the violence.
Although the events of the past few weeks had been disturbing, it had been encouraging to witness thousands of South Africans uniting to assist the victims of the violence either in their individual capacity or as part of community structures and religious groups.
”These actions give us much hope that South Africans are steadfast in their fight for the values that are contained in our Constitution,” Maseko said. – Sapa