2008 South Africa riots Totally Explained

Everything about 2008 South Africa Riots totally explained

A series of riots occurred in South Africa beginning on May 12, 2008. Reports as of May 25, 2008 indicated that at least 50 people had been killed with several hundred injured.
The violence spread to other townships later in the week across the Gauteng Province of South Africa with riots reported in several settlements including Diepsloot, Johannesburg central, Jeppestown, Hillbrow and others.. Police had arrested more than 200 people on charges including murder, attempted murder, rape, public violence and robbery. Armed police used tear gas and rubber bullets to quell rioting in central Johannesburg, attacks on foreigners and looting of foreign owned shops. The violence then spread to the coastal city of Durban It isn't the first time such xenophobic violence has occurred in South Africa.

Background

Attacks on foreign nationals increased markedly in late 2007 and it's believed that there have been at least a dozen attacks since the start of 2008.

Flashpoints

Johannesburg

In Johannesburg, mobs launched attacks on foreigners from neighbouring countries such as Zimbabwe and Mozambique. A total of 22 people were killed since mid-May 2008. More than 6,000 people have fled.
   The violence against foreigners, who are accused by many South Africans of depriving locals of jobs and committing crime, spread across townships.
   On May 18, an immigrant died after being covered with his own blankets and set alight. The image of the human fireball was captured on the front-page of several South African papers on May 19.; the patrons were driven out by some 20 or 30 armed men. On the following Wednesday morning, a mob confronted the members of the Khayalitsha Lodge hostel, a privately-run hostel that housed several foreign nationals, who were driven out of the hostel with their belongings despite a police presence in the area.
   In the Warwick Triangle, taxi drivers from the Clermont taxi rank ganged up on two men from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Cape Town

On May 22, Somali shop owners were evacuated to the suburb of Killarney from the informal settlement at Du Noon near Milnerton after attacks by groups of youths. Other incidents have been reported in parts of the Southern Cape, and in the Helderberg areas of Strand and Nomzamo.(External Link

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Other provinces

Riots spread into the townships of Leslie and Embalenhle in Secunda, Mpumalanga on May 21. Violence was reported to have spread also into North West and Free State.

Domestic reaction

South African government

In response to the violence President Thabo Mbeki announced he'd set up a panel of experts to investigate the riots. African National Congress leader Jacob Zuma, condemned the attacks, saying "We can't allow South Africa to be famous for xenophobia" in a speech in Pretoria while announcing his new 'Time Machine' project.
On May 21, Mbeki approved a request from the SAPS for deployment of armed forces against the attacks in Gauteng. It is the first time that the South African government has ordered troops out to the streets in order to quell unrest since the end of apartheid in 1994.
The Home Affairs department's spokesperson, Mansele Tau, denied that his ministry was deporting any guest or immigrant residents from the country and that there was any significant rise of applicants for voluntary deportation, but stated that the ministry would help with any paperwork for individual applicants whenever the occasion merited such a response.

African National Congress

The ANC's leadership, including ANC president Jacob Zuma, condemned both the attacks and the Mbeki government's response to the attacks; Zuma also lamented the usage of his trademark song Umshini wami by the rioters. Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe called for the creation of local committees to combat violence against foreigners.
The Gauteng provincial branch of the ANC has alleged that the violence is politically motivated by a "third hand" that's primarily targeting the ANC for the 2009 general elections.

Democratic Alliance

In a weekly newsletter published to the website of the Democratic Alliance (DA) party, Cape Town mayor and DA leader Helen Zille pointed to instances of crowds of rioters singing "Umshini wami", a popular ANC rally song associated with the 2007 party leadership campaign of current ANC president Jacob Zuma. Both Zille and the parliamentary leader of the DA, Sandra Botha, slammed the ANC for shifting the blame concerning the violence to a "third hand", which is often taken in South African post-apartheid political discourse as a reference to pro-apartheid or allegedly pro-apartheid organizations.
However, Zille was also criticized by Finance Minister Trevor Manuel for the Cape Argus's quote of her saying that foreigners were responsible for a bulk of the drug trade in South Africa.

KwaZulu-Natal provincial government

Bheki Cele, community safety minister of KwaZulu-Natal, blamed the Inkatha Freedom Party, a nationalist Zulu political party, for stoking and capitalizing on the violence in Durban. Both Cele and premier S'bu Ndebele claimed that IFP members, particularly residents of the Dalton hostel, had attacked a tavern that catered to Nigerian immigrants en route to a party meeting. The IFP, which is based primarily in the predominately ethnically-Zulu KwaZulu-Natal province, rejected the statements, and had, on May 20, engaged in an anti-xenophobia meeting with the ANC.

Intelligence community

Both the Minister of Intelligence, Ronnie Kasrils, and the director general of the National Intelligence Agency, Manala Manzini, backed the Gauteng ANC's allegations that the anti-immigrant violence is politically motivated and targeted at the ANC.

University Students

Many South African tertiary education institutions have condemned the attacks. Most notably students from the University of the Witwatersrand staged a non-violent anti-xenophobia protest march and issued an official newsletter expressing their "deep dismay" towards the xenophobic killings, violence and hostility.

International reaction

Zimbabwean politicians and diaspora

MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, in temporary exile in South Africa, expressed concern about the attacks on his countrymen and appealed to South Africans to treat the immigrants with sympathy rather than vilification. South African labour union federation COSATU also criticised the government's response and policies. Officials appealed to locals in an attempt to quell the violence.

Mozambique and other countries

A FRELIMO parliamentary deputy, Lidia Geremias, demanded for a South African government response to the riots that would be similar to the response of the German government against neo-Nazi attacks against Mozambican immigrants and guest workers in Germany.
The Mozambican government sponsored a repatriation of Mozambican immigrants from South Africa to their home country by bus; according to Leonardo Boby, Deputy National Director of Immigration, over 3,275 repatriates were registered by the Mozambican Foreign Affairs ministry since the exodus began on or around May 19. At least 4 bodies of Mozambican residents killed by rioters were repatriated for burial. This program hasn't kept up with the actual exodus of Mozambican immigrants and guest workers, which totals over 9,000.
Malawi has also began repatriations of Malawian nationals in South Africa. No such effort has been forthcoming or anticipated from Zimbabwe, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo or Nigeria, from whence millions of immigrant residents hail.

African Union

The African Union chairman, Tanzanian president Jakaya Kikwete, condemned the violence in a mini-summit convened in Arusha, Tanzania, where Thabo Mbeki was in attendance.

UNHCR

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees expressed concerns about the violence and urged the South African government to cease deportation of Zimbabwean nationals and also to allow the refugees and asylum seekers to regularize their stay in the country.

Possible post-violence ramifications

Economic and social ramifications

Because of the large role of immigrant labor in the mining, agricultural, and services industries in South Africa, a labor shortage of unskilled workers could damage the immediate future economic outlook of the country. In addition, as the violence and destruction has displaced tens of thousands of people, both immigrant and citizen residents, the displacement of these individuals could shift social burdens to areas of the country which are less economically supported than the more prosperous regions of Gauteng and Cape Town.
Tourism Since there has been so much violence recently, this will affect Tourism as well as Australia, New Zealand and U.S have put of travel advisories for these countries. Extreme caution will need to be taken by tourists planning to travel to South Africa.

2010 World Cup

South Africa is slated to host the 2010 FIFA World Cup (the first time that any member of the Confederation of African Football was selected to host the event), and had been preparing the infrastructure for the acceptance of thousands of tourists and football fans from various countries since at least 2004, when it was selected by the FIFA Executive Committee to host the event. While none of the World Cup-oriented projects have been physically affected by the violence, the reputation of South Africa as a next host of the event had already taken a beating from a particularly infamous rise in violent crime in the country since the end of the apartheid era, and the South African government has often repeated its insistence on hosting the event against rumors of a re-location of the event.
Thus, the violent riots against foreigners may have only contributed to the present stigma of South Africa as currently having a violent, anti-immigrant and anti-tourist sentiment, although FIFA has also reiterated that the contingency plan for a re-location of the event will only be activated in the case of a natural catastrophe. The organizing committee for World Cup 2010 has condemned the violence.

Political ramifications

The violence could slightly damage relations between South Africa and the governments which are represented by immigrant communities in the country, as South Africa may or may not attempt to win back the expatriates which fled the country in droves during the violence. It isn't certain if any involvement by supranational organizations such as the SADC or the African Union will take place.

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