SOUTH AFRICAN defence minister Lindiwe Sisulu yesterday ordered the country’s security forces to take “harsh” action against all perpetrators of xenophobic violence. This follows sporadic outbreaks of violence on Sunday night in a number of areas in the Western Cape province.
The army and police were dispatched to patrol and maintain a presence in half a dozen townships and informal settlements yesterday when more than 120 immigrants sought refuge at police stations on the day the World Cup final was played.
According to police spokesman Frederick van Wyk, there were “sporadic incidents of looting” at shops belonging to foreigners at Nyanga, Philippi East and Khayelitsha on the Cape Flats outside Cape Town. Areas surrounding the wine farming towns of Franschhoek and Paarl were also affected.
Rumours that foreigners would be subjected to xenophobic attacks if they did not leave South Africa after the World Cup have been persistent during the latter half of the football tournament, but government ministers dismissed this as scaremongering because no confirmed attacks had been reported. Foreigners are accused by many South Africans of taking scarce jobs and being behind much of the crime afflicting the country.
Capt van Wyk confirmed that seven men aged between 19 and 30 were arrested and charged with public violence in the Nyanga area. Calm was restored in the affected townships by early yesterday evening.
Ms Sisulu and police minister Nathi Mthethwa were in Cape Town yesterday to be briefed by senior police officers on the threat level. Ms Sisulu warned that xenophobia had “no place in our society”. She called on the security forces to stamp out all anti-foreigner threats. “Opportunistic criminals must know that we will deal with them harshly. There is no way we will allow them to spread fear and crime. We are working very hard to find them and prosecute them,” she said.
The prompt response by the army and police to the incidents has been in marked contrast to the way authorities dealt with violence against foreigners in 2008, when 64 non-nationals were murdered and up to 100,000 more forced from their homes over a two-week period.