Cape Town — South African legislators from across the political spectrum have unanimously condemned attacks on foreign nationals which are sweeping parts of the country.
In a special debate held on Friday, opposition Members of Parliament said among the causes of the xenophobic attacks were lack of border control, policy failures, the Zimbabwe crisis and corruption at the government department handling immigration.
The debate was called in the wake of outbreaks of violence against foreigners in Alexandra township, which were followed by attacks in other areas.
The Alexandra violence was "perhaps the worst xenophobic outbreak that South Africa has experienced," Sheila Camerer of the official Opposition, the Democratic Alliance, told MPs.
She cited "failure of policy implementation by government" as a cause of the violence. "Social services have all but collapsed in many areas... these impoverished residents fear that foreigners are taking from them desperately-needed resources, including jobs," she said.
South Africa's stance on Zimbabwe was also named as contributing to the influx of foreigners and resulting build-up of tension.
"[The effect of President Thabo Mbeki's] silent diplomacy towards Zimbabwe, which led to tacit approval and implied support for what [President Robert] Mugabe and Zanu PF are doing... is that more than three million Zimbabweans had to flee from Mugabe's tyrannical rule to
South Africa," Corne Mulder of the the Freedom Front Plus said, adding that "the Zimbabwe crisis is now escalating beyond Zimbabwe into the Southern African region. It will not go away - we have to address that."
Mulder also blamed "ineffective departments of Home Affairs and Safety and Security" for being "incapable of securing South Africa's borders and processing refugees". All these factors were conducive to xenophobic outbursts, he said, saying that "the policy failure chickens of the ANC are coming home to roost one after the other."
Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille also referred to the role South Africa's neighbours are playing, blaming the African Union's "inability to deal with the rogue leaders who foster instability in their countries and... drive people to what they think are greener pastures in South Africa, only to find that our own people are struggling to get the most basic needs [met], leading to a competition for scarce resources, where the poor turn on the poor instead of focusing their anger on the government."
She added that "we [South Africa] have no proper mechanism to deal with refugees and illegal immigrants," citing corruption at the Department of Home Affairs as an exacerbating factor. She urged "stricter control at our porous borders", as well as an education campaign to "teach our people the difference between a refugee and an illegal immigrant."
"The genuine refugees who have been displaced… must be accommodated in safe refugee camps as soon as possible, and the illegal immigrants must be deported also immediately," she said.
Camerer called for similar action, saying that the government needs to "address the security vacuum along our borders." She also called for a survey to "determine how may illegal immigrants there are in South Africa and where they are located, and develop solutions which will see them properly integrated into South Africa or returned to their country
Obed Bapela of the ruling African National Congress called MPs' attention to the "element of criminality" which motivated many of the attacks, emphasising that many of the victims in Alexandra were in fact South Africans who had refused to join attackers in targeting foreigners. He also noted that most of the attackers were young, and said that "a lot needs to be done to educate [them]."
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He agreed with others, though, that land issues contributed to the violence.
The African Christian Democratic Party's Steve Swart concurred with Bapela on the criminal factor: "Criminals are using this as an opportunity to run rampant," he said.
The need to address the socio-economic conditions of those living in the affected townships, and to redress the injustices of the past, was highlighted by the Inkatha Freedom Party's Ben Skosana. "Regrettably, this mayhem could be indicative of the reaction from a people who... still suffer the severe psychological social and economic 'unfreedoms' and deprivation," he said.
The parties were all in agreement, however, that the violence was in no way justifiable and was to be condemned unconditionally.
