21 May 2008
Maputo — At least five Mozambicans are among those murdered in the outbreak of violence against foreign citizens in South Africa, and a further 70 have lost all their possessions, according to Lidia Geremias, a parliamentary deputy for the ruling Frelimo Party who was elected by Mozambicans living in the diaspora.
Speaking on Wednesday in the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, Geremias said that shacks where these Mozambicans were living were burnt to the ground, but brick houses were occupied by the violent mobs. Their original occupants were forced to take refuge in tents erected on the grounds of police stations, on in the back yards of churches.
She said Mozambicans were "taken by surprise by the macabre xenophobic attacks against immigrants in South Africa, and we fail to understand the true origins and motives for these attacks".
She pointed out that Mozambique has a long history of providing shelter for citizens of other African countries fleeing from wars and political upheavals. In the past large numbers of Zimbabweans and South Africans fleeing from white minority regimes took refuge in Mozambique. More recently, the country has hosted smaller numbers of refugees from countries such as Burundi, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In the cases of Zimbabwe and South Africa, Geremias recalled, "our fellow countrymen often paid the highest price, that of their own lives, for this historic solidarity and friendship".
"No country develops in isolation", she stressed. "Right now, as we move towards regional integration and globalization, the presence of other peoples in our countries is inevitable. The free circulation of people and goods in our region is part of this economic development".
Furthermore, many Mozambicans were working in South Africa quite legally. Geremias pointed to some 54,000 Mozambicans on South African mines and farms with legally recognised work contracts. Such migrants, she said, "are contributing significantly to the economic development of South Africa".
Geremias noted that in the past Mozambican migrants living in Germany had come under racist attack from neo-Nazi groups. On those occasions, "the German government was firm in taking action against the instigators and perpetrators of violence".
She expected no less from the South African government, and called on the authorities "to contain the situation as rapidly as possible, and to launch civic education in love for one's neighbour among the public".
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