17 November 2009
Johannesburg — Fearing a resurgence of xenophobic attacks, around 2,500 Zimbabwean migrants have taken refuge in government buildings in De Doorns, a farming town about 140km from Cape Town, South Africa, after some of their shacks in an informal settlement were attacked and demolished, said a police official.
The attacks took place early in the morning of 17 November in Stofland, meaning dustland in Afrikaans, the largest squatter camp in De Doorns. All the displaced Zimbabweans are documented.
The local police station commander, Superintendent Desmond van der Westhuizen, told IRIN the local residents were unhappy that farm owners had been employing Zimbabweans for "less money", and had complained that farmers were "excluding the local community".
But the residents threatened to prevent the Zimbabweans from going to work on 17 November [Monday morningl
The global economic recession has hit South Africa hard; the government's latest labour force survey said 484,000 jobs had been lost in the last six months, and unemployment stood at 24.5 percent for the period July to September 2009, up from 23.2 percent during the same period in 2008.
Tebogo Letsie/IRIN
Van der Westhuizen told IRIN that the situation had been tense since 13 November, when Zimbabweans had been involved in a violent spat in an informal tavern. "Following that incident, some 68 Zimbabweans" had fled the area, fearing a resurgence of xenophobic violence.
In May 2008 a tide of xenophobic violence erupted in Johannesburg and quickly spread through most parts of the country, killing more than 60 people and displacing about 100,000 others.
"The same area was affected in 2008," van der Westhuizen said. The 68 Zimbabweans took refuge in government buildings in De Doorns during Saturday and Sunday.
The police, accompanied by local government and disaster management officials, held a meeting with the informal settlement residents on the evening of 16 November to calm the situation. "But the residents threatened to prevent the Zimbabweans from going to work on 17 November [Monday morning]," van der Westhuizen told IRIN.
Police had to fire rubber bullets to disperse the residents, who attacked some more shacks in Stofland, forcing the Zimbabweans to flee. "Fortunately, none of the Zimbabweans were harmed and they all moved out with their personal belongings voluntarily," the police superintendent said.
The local authorities are trying to erect a tent shelter and provide portable toilets for the displaced people on the town's sports ground. Van der Westhuizen told IRIN: "We are making interim arrangements to keep them here for a week until we try and mediate with the local residents to get the Zimbabweans integrated back into the community."
[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations ]
Read comments. Write your own.
Copyright © 2009 UN Integrated Regional Information Networks. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
What I they fighting over? Can someone advise me how to get to own a farm in De Dooms. To have such an army of people fighting each other to work on my farm makes me ecstatic.But a question remains - why are they nmot fighting to work in possessed farms in Zimbabwe? There are more questions needing to be asked down the road, but let's keep that for other generations.Fighting each other to be able to find work on a farm...Malawians used to be like that in Zimbabwe...do I see a pattern?
I think those affected Zimbabweans should humble themselves, do not seek revenge. Zimbabweans always cherish humbleness, hardworking, honesty, resilience and peace as a national factor. Those who attack you are misguided. It is very sad that they have not learnt secretes of life from you. This is not the end of life but it is the beginning of the new chapter in your lives. Here back home some of us are working hard to make the GNU yield the expected fruits. This is a challenge to every men, women and child, we will get there and those in Diaspora will soon come back with all the god experiences they got over the past years of self dispensation. To the people of De Doorns I say seek secretes of good workmanship conducted by your victims so that you get to quench your ego. I think somebody has to help De Doorns community define their problem. Even if all the foreigners left them alone it does not solve their problem. The secrete in life is nothing for nothing, you rip what you sow, and what you earn is in direct variation to the amount of effort and time you put in.
It is unfortunate such things are happening in South Africa. Africans should see themselves as brothers and not as rivals. Again, the issue of bad leadership which can not provide for people her people comes to the fore here. What is Mugabe R. doing about this. Is he aware of this? Yes, he can go to sleep why all Zimbabweans are killed and roasted on the streets of other countries. It is only in AFRICA that leaders remain in power until death, when they are not monarchs even when the people vote them out they still force themselves on the people. They prefer seeing everyone in the country dead to leaving the reins of power. Now Mugabe has remain power while his people have become meat and bread for birds and fowls of the air in SA. They have become so cheap a labor that the farmers in SA prefer their services to that of the locals, who knows how many of them have become slaves and prostitutes in SA and other countries!!! I call on the people of ZIMBABWE to take your destiny in your own hands...South Africans are not your problem, they are only humans, responding to stimulus. YOU HAVE A COUNTRY, ZIMBABWE.
Topara2006;
As far as I can see this incident has nothing to do with President Mugabe. While it is true that the President's heart bleeds when he hears of an attack on a Zimbabwean on foreign land we should always remember that people are free to make choice, which choices are personal, hence have nothing to do with any other person.
History is full of examples of people who have made choices. When barbarians from Europe came to Africa they faced many challenges and problems that included diseases and wars but I have never heard anyone blaming their problems on the leaders of the countries they came from.
It is obvious that these barbarians were running away from many problems that were besieging their countries of origin but not a single blame went back to the Queen of England.
Out of a population of 13 million people only a few Zimbabweans have decided to try their luck in the Diaspora and when they face problems in those countries the blame goes back to President Mugabe. I just do not see how this should be so.
Zimbabwe's population is made up of indigenous people and foreigners of Malawian, Mozambican, South African and Zambian origin as well as many other nationals but no blame has been directed at their countries of origin when they face problems, although, of course, no foreigner has faced attack from locals precisely because of our civility.
Black South Africans, just like their colonizers, the Boers, are war mongers. Their hearts do not beat when they kill a human being - to them it is like killing a chicken. South Africans on one hand do not fear NGOZI (the avenging spirit) but Zimbabweans, on the other hand, respect human life and so will not attack another being, especially if the person is black unless of course they side with the enemy – and you know who our enemy is.
I agree with you though that the affected Zimbabweans "HAVE A COUNTRY, ZIMBABWE" and so should come home and help develop their own mother land. It does not make any real sense that Zimbabweans are killed for land when President Mugabe has taken land from barbaric land grabbers of 1890 to give to us the indigenous people.
However, it remains their choice to come or not to come. If they want to continue risking their lives fighting misguided South Africans, who do not even know who their real enemy is; it is their choice.
South Africans have lost focus, are missing the ball and are not seeing the bigger picture. While they fight poor Zimbabweans, the Boers, who forcibly grabbed their lands, are consolidating their hold on that land – they will remain poor and dispossessed, subjugated, enslaved and oppressed until another generation wages another revolution to rid the country of thieves and grabbers of African land.
It is in the interest of Boers to see blacks fighting each other over nothing - who is a better slave of the Whiteman? It is absurd; it is stupid, it is idiotic and foolish for black South Africans to fail to see the real reason for going to war. They did not go to war to be the first in line to be enslaved on Boer farms, unless their reason for going to war was different from ours.
"As far as I can see this incident has nothing to do with President Mugabe"
Well if Zimbabwe had been managed correctly since independence then these people wouldnt be in South Africa in the first place.
These Zimbabweans in South Africa were foreced out of thier homeland by the situation at home caused by none other that Robert Mugabe.
European travelers that headed to Zimbabwe did so for very different reasons.
"Out of a population of 13 million people only a few Zimbabweans have decided to try their luck in the Diaspora"
a few? is that like 3? Come on now... be realistic!
"Black South Africans, just like their colonizers, the Boers, are war mongers. Their hearts do not beat when they kill a human being - to them it is like killing a chicken."
More racist comments from Takunya
"President Mugabe has taken land from barbaric land grabbers of 1890 to give to us the indigenous people.... who consist only of ZANU PF officials and there relatives"
takunya you are not just a mugabe boot licker but when you say "The president's heart bleeds when he hears of an attack of a Zimbabwean a foreign country," and when you further say, "Out of a population of 13 million ONLY A FEW Zimbabweans have decided to try their luck in the diaspora," you are just full of shit. There is no other way or better way I can describe someone like you. MILLIONS of Zimbabweans are just in South Africa alone
Kjrs120;
When next time you count people do not count yourself, Awt, Zungairwa, Euro35, Prem (the whore), Julhamn and many others because you all not Zimbabweans. Some of the people you meet in the Diaspora are just crying more than the bereaved - they just are not Zimbabweans, Full Stop.
Most of these foreigners are intend on surviving on this. Looked at closely, they associate with Zimbabwe because, at this juncture, anyone who says is from Zimbabwe is immediately given food, shelter and money by the CIA and MI6.
You obviously are aware or must know the case of that woman who went to the UK on a Malawian passport but when things got tough she then said she was Zimbabwean simply because she once stayed in our country. She forgot that before going to the UK she had traced her foot steps back to her roots (where her father came from) and acquired the citizenship of her real country.
However, as fate will have it, she could not secure a job and yet she had two children to look after. The next thing was to again trace her foot steps back to the country she had rejected and denounced. Cases of this nature are too numerous and if you take these people at face value and count everybody and anybody your figure will surpass 13 million. In the end it would mean that even President Mugabe is in the Diaspora – what absurdity!!
These are the people you are counting but as far as we, true Zimbabweans, are concerned only a few Zimbabweans are in the Diaspora as we speak and these Zimbos do not have two passports each to use in situations where, when it suits them, they are Zimbabweans and when it does not they are either South Africans, Mozambicans, Malawians, Zambians, Tanzanians etc.
See all comments (26).
Active Discussions: Zimbabweans Fear New Xenophobic Attacks in SA