Leaves caution behind

The only time I have heard [Western Cape premier] Ebrahim Rasool speak was at the launch of a book of Sufi philosophy I had helped edit.

The Somali section of the Soetwater camp – flimsy catering tents offered as shelter

The now notorious refugee camp called Soetwater is a few kilometres from where I live. Three thousand people have been living there in bitter cold, increasingly wet tents for two weeks, tortured by uncertainty. They were wrenched from their homes and businesses by violence and terror. Overnight, the patient, painful work of years was plundered, burnt or crumbling behind them. The response of the authorities, and the UN, to their plight has been to insist that they must return to the communities that turned on them so suddenly and brutally. In other words, preserving the illusion of national harmony and tolerance is considered more Read the rest of this entry »

This is a young woman’s experience of xenophobic violence, and police complicity, in her community:

I live in Joe Slovo settlement, in Milnerton. It was Thursday afternoon (22 May). Me and my friends were talking, and my friends were saying, “These foreigners, they must leave the country.” My feelings were different, that these are Africans, and we must stand together, but my friends said their parents feel betrayed by these foreigners, because they’re losing their jobs to these foreigners. So if someone’s standing with foreigners looking for a job, the foreigners will say to whoever’s going to hire them, “You can give me less money than to the South Africans.”

That’s where the complications come in, like say, the Somalians, they have these shops, where the prices are cheaper, which makes it difficult for the other black people, like the Xhosa, because people are going to go to the Somalian shops. So that’s where the conflict comes in.

And the other issue that came up in our discussion is that [my friends] believe that these foreigners come to South Africa with drugs, and that these drugs are affecting their children and their lives. But me, in my own opinion, there may be some who come in and sell drugs and stuff like that, but the other [foreigners] who are innocent, they work very hard, like five to five a day for minimum wages . . . But my friends say, “They’re not supposed to be here, they must go back to their country, ‘cause they’re simply messing up our country.”

But at the same time, while these riots are happening, our brothers, our brothers who are very close-minded, criminals who normally do stuff, get a chance to do things. So that night, when the riots were happening, they were burning people’s containers, you know, where [the foreigners] do business. People were burning Read the rest of this entry »

Rastafarian waving a flag in protest against xenophobia, at a vigil outside Parliament, on May 23. No politicians attended the vigil. Rastas have been brutally assaulted when standing up against xenophobic mobs.

The use of the term “internment camps” for the City of Cape Town refugee camps, by the Treatment Action Campaign, has become somewhat controversial. This is my view, posted as a comment elsewhere. I omitted to mention the sheer terror with which many refugees, victims of state violence elsewhere on the continent, respond to official action :

["Internment camps" is] a very emotive term — but the city was at one stage undoubtedly heading towards creating places that would have been internment camps in all but name.

I have absolutely no doubt about this, because I heard discussions amongst city officials myself, in person, with my own ears, showing that they were at times considering lockdowns on the camps and sites, for ’security reasons’, and that they thought they might end up forcibly removing people from certain locations. At least one of the sites was in fact locked down over Sunday night. What’s more, the city wanted to remove people from all the smaller refuges and concentrate them in the camps. Read the rest of this entry »

Refugee leader Theo addresses his fellows outside Caledon Square police station, in central Cape Town

I can’t get the stench of urine out of my nostrils. It’s the smell of fear, anger and humiliation.

I smelt it last night, when I spoke to the refugees outside Caledon Square police station. I saw it running thick in the gutters a couple of feet away from where people were sleeping. I smelt it again this morning, when I went round to advise them that lawyers and press were about to visit to take statements. The refugees were preparing to embark on a hunger strike. Theo, a published author from the DRC, was standing on a milk crate, addressing his comrades. They were refusing to abandon the pavement, in protest at their treatment by the government.

There must have been a whole lot of developments during the day which I was unable to track, as this evening they were being driven to a community hall in Sea Point, awaiting a visit by the provincial premier or his representative. Read the rest of this entry »

This evening, I stood outside the Caledon Square police station, where 150 displaced South Africans of other nationalities are sleeping on the pavement, amidst a heavy smell of urine. They’ve been here for two nights already. The rain is about to come, heavy rain for the next three days. Around them swirls a fight between the city authorities and the provincial authorities. No more than 20m from a fucking police station, and they’ve not after two days been provided with anything other than food and blankets by members of the community.

Zimbabweans who have been holed up in a backyard shack in Khayelitsha for three days, after being stoned by locals, prepare to leave

My armchair theory that South Africa is in fact one of the continent’s least developed countries, when one looks at human decency and not at numbers of shopping malls, looks dismayingly substantial.

A group of 12 people from the DRC and Tanzania and Rwanda and Burundi and Somalia surround me (not threateningly) and grill me on what’s happening. “My business of ten years has been destroyed, how can I go back to my mother empty-handed?” “How will we get restitution?” “This government treats us like animals.” “Where is the government, why do they not come to talk us?” “We don’t trust anyone any more, we want the UNHCR.” “They must send us to Namibia, to Zambia. There we will be okay.” Read the rest of this entry »

Archbishop Thabo Mokgatho addresses a protest meeting in Cape Town’s St Georges Cathedral. His plea for an end to the furious finger-pointing that surrounds us has so far gone unheeded.

I’d prefer to be doing something more ‘useful’ but I’m sitting in St. Georges Cathedral, waiting to play into a microphone, a sound clip of refugees speaking of their experiences. It’s one item on the programme at a public meeting protesting xenophobia. I’m wearing a t-shirt that says ‘foreigner on the front’, as are many. Archbishop Mokgatho’s wearing it over his long purple robes. I haven’t had a chance to read the back yet.

Themba Baleni, my soundman from Beat It days, greets me – we haven’t seen each other for over two years. He tells me that Peter, the cameraman we used to work with, is now living on the streets in Muizenberg. This I had heard already; but had hoped might have changed.

The cathedral is filling up with people from all Cape Town’s communities, archbishops, imams and chief justices will speak alongside the activists. Read the rest of this entry »

Police at anti-xenophobia ‘vigil’ outside Parliament on Friday 23 May

This was written on the night of Sunday 26. By Monday midday, fortunately, it seemed sense had prevailed, in good part due to strong pressure from the likes of TAC, and the authorities had retreated from insisting that all refugees be concentrated in a few large camps.

I’m sitting in the Cape Town Disaster Risk Management Centre, around a square of desks, cables, microphones and cables. It’s 2am, and half the eight people in the room are asleep. They’re not being neglectful – out on the flats and in the townships, the violence has, for tonight at any rate, subsided. No more bullets fly in Du Noon, that we know of. (“Who’s shooting?” “If there were names on the bullets, we’d know.”)

In front of me is the carefully tabulated Treatment Action Campaign/Aids Law Project/MSF assessment of the refugee situation: “Displaced persons, Sunday 25 May: 8969”.

Phrases: “entirely lacking in all supplies”, “incidents of intimidation at hospital”, “desperately need more ablution blocks”, “seems to be well-kept and under control”, “military providing protection”, “crowd unsettled, concerned for lack of safety; lack of drinking water”.

Over 650 people are in the Gant’s warehouse in Somerset West, 500 in the Desmond Tutu hall, 1320 in the Kraaifontein Youth Centre. Read the rest of this entry »