A year after South Africa’s horrific xenophobic violence Monako Dibetle returned to ground zero and found that underlying fears and hatred remain unchanged
A year after South Africa’s horrific xenophobic violence Monako Dibetle returned to ground zero and found that underlying fears and hatred remain unchanged
A surface calm reigns in Ramaphosaville a year after the East Rand shack settlement exploded in a frenzy of anti-immigrant violence.
But the rage that sparked it and the terror it caused linger on.
When the Mail & Guardian visited the settlement this week the same dirt-strewn streets, lack of services and unemployment, particularly among the youth, were in evidence. Nothing has changed except for the re-erection of some burnt shacks.
Violence and property crime remain rife, says Siya Mgijima (19), despite a notable decline after the xenophobic attacks. And, he says, many youth and adults would be happy if the attacks happened again.
Most of the perpetrators of last year’s violence were thugs looking to enrich themselves.
‘I’m telling you — if another attack occurs, I’m sure the thugs will be happy because they’ll start breaking into people’s houses and terrorising everybody, including South Africans,” says Mgijima.
Prince Mofokeng (18), however, is unapologetic about last year’s violence, saying much of the information carried by the media was wrong.
He says foreigners had been beating, robbing and raping people at shebeens and taverns in the shack settlement over a long period and nothing had been done.
Mofokeng insists that foreigners ‘made Ramaphosa their own”, antagonising other residents.
‘Foreigners said they wanted to build a small Maputo in Ramaphosa. So the community reacted by chasing them out. The media reported that we are victimising foreigners because they did not know what was going on here. We were just defending ourselves.”
Miro Mavila (30) is a Mozambican national who fled Ramaphosaville last May after one of his compatriots was burnt to death. He now comes back only to sell chickens and eggs.
Mavila says many of the Mozambicans who fled last year vowed never to return. ‘I only come in the morning to do business but in the afternoon I go to my room in Reiger Park.”
Mavila left Mozambique in the late 1990s to escape poverty and unemployment. ‘If things improve back home I’ll definitely go back, but at the moment I can’t. I have two children back home and I need to work for them in South Africa.”
An angry Benet Oguda (35), also a Mozambican national, says for a foreigner to stay in Ramaphosa amounts to suicide.
The mass condemnation of last year’s attacks appear to have made a difference, but he will not gamble with his life by going back.
Oguda, who used to rent an RDP house in Ramaphosa, says he was forced out of his house and all his possessions were plundered. Now he lives in a nearby informal settlement to which most of the foreigners fled.
‘What do you do if people come and tell you they have more rights than you because you are a foreigner? I choose to give them what they want to save my life.
‘I still live in fear. It will take me a long time to trust South Africans again.”