Attacks Have Immigrants Worried Again in South Africa
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Version 0 of 1. WALLACEDENE, South Africa — Abdugadish Mohamed stood just inside the doorway of the one-room shop he runs in this tense, smoky township outside Cape Town. He peered warily at the surrounding grid of dirt paths and ramshackle homes. “We are scared, man,” said Mr. Mohamed, 28, a Somali and the manager of the Bafana Bafana Cash Store. “These people are dangerous.” Mr. Mohamed and his two workers — both of whom are Zimbabwean refugees — had been chased from the township, and their shop looted to the walls, a little over a month earlier. They had been back for only a week. Their first job had been to build a metal protective cage around the cash till. “This place, it can change in an instant,” said Allen Gonese, 29, one of the Zimbabwean workers. “They say it is because they hate the foreigners, because of xenophobia, but really, it is just an excuse for stealing.” A fresh wave of violence aimed at foreign citizens living here and in several other poor black communities outside Cape Town has raised new fears among residents, community leaders and advocates for poor refugees. Some 200 Somali shops and an unknown number of others run by Chinese immigrants, Zimbabweans and others have been looted and sometimes burned to the concrete foundations in recent months, said Braam Hanekom, director of a Cape Town-based activist group called People Against Suffering, Oppression and Poverty. What set off the latest violence is unclear, but Mr. Hanekom and others say the government has cracked down on refugees recently, including by increasing deportations and closing refugee offices in some cities that are essential for foreigners to get their papers renewed. So far, the violence against immigrants has been nowhere near the levels of the wave that swept through the country’s poorest communities in 2008, when at least 60 people were killed and tens of thousands forced to flee their homes and businesses. And another thing that is different this time around is that several communities have responded to the violence with high-profile campaigns to welcome back those who had been chased away. Attacks on foreigners living in Masiphumelele township, on the Cape peninsula south of the city, for instance, were quickly followed with an effort by community leaders to urge them to return. Most did go back, local leaders said, which attracted a congratulatory visit from Archbishop Desmond Tutu. In the Mandela Park section of Imizamo Yethu township, also on the peninsula, a brief burst of violence followed rumors several weeks ago that some Malawians living there had been responsible for the rape of a local girl. “It was not true,” said Kenny Tokwe, a local community development worker, “but already the people had taken action.” The Malawi men were chased away, as were some Somali shopkeepers. “Almost all of the Somalis are back now, as far as I know,” Mr. Tokwe said. Yet a certain uneasiness remains even among those who have come out of hiding. “The reality is that the communities really need these shops,” Mr. Hanekom said. “It’s not nice having to walk a half mile to buy your loaf of bread. So yes, there have been some welcoming back, and there have been some heartwarming stories. But it would be wrong to be too optimistic.” Once the shops are reopened and restocked, they could provide a tempting excuse, he said, for a fresh wave of looting, should something happen to set it off. And there is, indeed, something else worrying residents and others, something even immigrant advocates hesitate to speak about. In 2010, the country was unnerved by rumors that more xenophobic violence would follow the final game of soccer’s World Cup, which South Africa was hosting. And there was some violence, though nothing like the rumors had suggested. And now there are fresh rumors making the rounds in townships across the country that still more outbreaks of violence will be visited upon foreigners in the rush of emotions sure to follow the death of Nelson Mandela, the former president and anti-apartheid campaigner who has been hospitalized since June 8 and who turns 95 on Thursday. “Yes, we are very concerned about that,” said Ayub Abdi, 19, an engineering student who works at his family’s shop in Mandela Park. “The customers know of this rumor, and they use it against you. If there is a dispute over some goods, they say to us, ‘Oh, you will get in a lot of trouble after Mandela dies.’ ” Both Mr. Hanekom and William Kerfoot, a lawyer for the Legal Resource Center in Cape Town, which offers free counsel to immigrants and refugees, said that they and other advocates suspected that the rumors were baseless — “I certainly hope so,” Mr. Kerfoot said — though they might inadvertently stir trouble by providing a pretext for those needing little reason to loot. “On the one hand, you don’t want to perpetuate the rumor,” Mr. Hanekom said. “On the other hand, you don’t want to ignore it because it has serious repercussions.” Beverly Tsambi, 41, was in Mr. Abdi’s Mandela Park shop with her two grandchildren, looking over packets of chips. “I don’t think it is going to happen, but the rumor is scaring people,” she said. “Maybe it will happen in other areas, but not here in Mandela Park.” Out in Wallacedene, though, the fear is more palpable. Mirriam Bodiba, a local official with the A.N.C. Youth League, drove slowly along the township’s cluttered and rutted streets, tracing the path the violence took here a month ago. “Here is where it began,” she said, pointing to the sprawling, charred wreckage of a still-empty shop owned by a Chinese family. The crowds formed in the dark hours of the early morning, smashing into the shop and stealing everything, then dispersing into the labyrinth of shacks and re-forming a few blocks away at another shop, also burned. And then another, and another, dozens of them. “The people get in the fighting mood, and they think they can attack whoever is in front of them,” she said. About 70 people were later arrested, but it was too late. “Oh, it will happen again,” Mr. Gonese, one of the Zimbabwean workers, said. “There will be more attacks and more lootings.” Whether Mr. Mandela’s death, or some other spark, will set it off, he cannot predict, but he and others in the Bafana Bafana Cash Store, which is named after South Africa’s national soccer team, said they expected the violence to return. When local leaders initiated negotiations with Somali shop owners after the violence, urging them to return, they pledged it would not happen again. Some have come back, Mr. Mohamed said, and some have not. For his part, Mr. Mohamed returned only because “it is my job, and I must have money.” He says he has no doubt his store will be attacked again. The sad-eyed shopkeeper kept himself just inside the doorway’s shadows, peering out at passers-by. |