Africa Focus: Plea to stop xenophobia amid hunt for instigators of looting

While South African authorities on Monday intensified hunting for instigators of a looting spree that trashed more than 120 foreign-owned shops in the Johannesburg area, there have been calls on the government to acknowledge the xenophobic intent of perpetrators.

Tempers, ignited by the fatal shooting of a 14-year-old alleged looter on Jan. 19, flared again over the weekend when a 13-month- old infant was trampled to death by looters. National television, radio and newspaper coverage suggested the child's mother was one of the culprits.

There have been reports that the looting, aimed at foreign- owned shops, was helped by certain police officers, but the South African Police Service (SAPS) denied the allegations.

The South African government had consistently attributed such violence to general crime, "instead of recognizing it for what it is - xenophobic violence," the African Diaspora Forum (ADF) said.

Joel Mothiba, police commissioner for South Africa's Gauteng province where the latest incidents occurred, said the violence was "criminal and not xenophobic".

But South Africa's influential Sunday Times newspaper said in an editorial: "Evidence from shop owners suggests there was a blurring of the lines in many of the .. attacks, with the apparent motivation of the looters shifting fluidly between simple pillage and hatred of foreigners".

Barney Mthombothi, former editor of Johannesburg's Financial Mail, said, "the root cause was xenophobia, the dislike of people from other countries".

In Mthombothi's view, "what sets us apart from the rest of the world is the violence that is often visited upon foreigners by disgruntled citizens".

He said there would be copycat incidents in other parts of South Africa. Indeed, the violence spread from Soweto, the sprawling apartheid-era township in Johannesburg's south-west, to Kagiso, further west of South Africa's financial hub.

In a related development, an Ethiopian shopkeeper was shot dead more than 1,300 kilometers away in Khayelitsha near Cape Town.

Most of the targets of the latest attacks were shopkeepers of Somali or Pakistani origin. Through bulk-buying and other collective commercial practices they have tended to sell goods at lower prices than those offered by South African businesses, called spaza shops, in the country's predominantly black townships.

On Jan. 24 the South African Spaza and Tuckshop Association complained about foreign owners. The association's president Rose Nkosi told Johannesburg's City Press newspaper, "We don' t want them back here. The community has spoken. Rather let them go back to their countries and leave our country with freedom".

After more than 60 people were killed in a wave of xenophobic violence across South Africa in May 2008, the country's government has consistently sought to downplay animosity towards foreigners. In the latest upsurge, messages of tolerance and peace have been repeated by South African police representatives, by Gauteng Premier David Makhura, and by leaders of the ruling African National Congress (ANC).

At the height of the latest violence, President Jacob Zuma was leading a South African delegation at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. From there he instructed security ministers to work with provincial and local government leadership to restore order.

A multidisciplinary task team, made up of the South African police's tactical response team, public order policing units, detectives, crime intelligence and visible policing units has been established to find out who instigated the disturbances.

However, the City Press quoted several eyewitness accounts from foreign shop owners as claiming that South African police were complicit in the looting. On Jan. 23 Johannesburg's daily Times newspaper published a front-page photograph of three police officers walking away from a store while looters helped themselves. Similar footage has been broadcast by South Africa television stations.

In response, South African police spokesman Solomon Makgale said officials knew of only one such incident and had taken appropriate action. Referring to the other allegations, he said: "There is absolutely nothing of this sort that has been brought to our attention. If there is evidence to corroborate these allegations, then we will certainly look into them and take action".

In a further development, Johannesburg city councillor Jabulani Thomo has also been accused of fomenting trouble.

At a community meeting on Jan. 19, he warned people not to rent their properties to foreign shop owners without following proper procedures. Thomo told the City Press that his message had been misinterpreted by the community.

In the incident where a baby was killed in Kagiso township, several eyewitnesses were quoted in several newspapers, and on South Africa's ENCA television channel, as saying the 19-year-old mother was among the looters. Named as Zanele Majozi, she has two other children, aged five and two. Her dead baby's clothing was found inside the looted store.

Most of the looters seen in TV footage and newspaper footage are young. Many are of school-going age, raising questions about why they were not in their classrooms.

Sipho Masondo, a columnist of the City Press, said looting had been a daily reality in Soweto in the 1970s, 80s and 90s.

Soweto was a focal point of political uprisings against South Africa's apartheid government. From 1976 until South Africa's first democratic elections in 1994, parts of Soweto were often no- go areas for certain commercial activities.

Masondo said that in those years he had taken part in plundering. In addition, intolerance had long been part of Soweto because the apartheid government had subdivided the township according to South Africa's different ethnic groups. For example, Zulu speakers were in a different area from those who spoke Xhosa, or Sesotho, and so on.

"And there were unwritten rules about people venturing into undesignated areas, unless they were courting trouble," he said.

Masono said that although there were foreigners in Soweto at the time, such separation planted the seeds of antipathy towards "others".

Analysts said the looting and xenophobia highlighted the struggle for resources among South Africa's poor. While the country's official unemployment rate hovers around 25 percent, this rises to 38 percent under the expanded definition, which includes those of an employable age who have given up looking for work. In addition, unemployment rates vary according to region and age group.

Among young South Africans in many areas, the unemployment rate is over 50 percent. More than 16 million South Africans, out of a population of 52 million, receive social grant payments from the government.

South Africa's 2011 census said there were 2.2 million foreign nationals living in the country. However, this is generally thought to be an undercount, given the perceived lack of adequate border controls and South Africa's attractiveness to citizens of other African countries.

Nationals from 53 African nations are represented in South Africa, with Zimbabweans being the most numerous at 605,416. This is also thought to be an undercount.

During South Africa's apartheid years, several African countries gave access and support to struggle activists. Hence slogans about "our brothers and sisters" were prominent in a Sunday march against looting in Johannesburg.

The message is often conveyed that South Africa owes a struggle- era debt to fellow Africans. Endi