Nice words, harsh deeds
AFTER a spate of murderous attacks in Durban and Johannesburg on migrant workers from neighbouring countries, South Africa badly needs to improve its image on the continent. And at the level of gestures and rhetoric, it is trying to do exactly that. On a visit to Mozambique last month President Jacob Zuma apologised for the violence by a “small minority” of his compatriots which had cost the lives of three people from that country. Then he organised “Africa Day” celebrations in Pretoria, commemorating the creation of a precursor to the African Union (AU) in 1963. Meanwhile, the home-affairs department hastily devised a competition to showcase the merits of “outstanding migrants”; and on June 7th Johannesburg will host an AU summit, where much talk of transcontinental solidarity will doubtless be heard.
But rhetoric and reality are a long way apart. When violence between local South Africans and newcomers was at its worst in April, the government did send in security forces with a mandate to impose peace, but they were soon redirected to raids and roundups whose main targets were foreigners. One ongoing mission is undiplomatically called Operation Fiela, a word meaning “sweep away dirt” or “clean up” in the Sotho family of languages. It has led to the arrest of at least 1,650 migrants without documents across the country, police say. In a separate claim, police in KwaZulu-Natal report having arrested 12,000 people in that province alone as part of a drive against crime; that figure seems to include both locals and foreigners.
In defence of their actions, police say they are taking needed steps to deal with drugs and illegal weapons, and that they are targeting some of the places worst hit by gang violence. But the fact is that many late-night swoops and mass arrrests, often involving the regular army as well as the police, have zeroed in on migrants, leading to complaints of human-rights abuse.
South Africa slips as an exemplar of rule of law
When hundreds of people were hauled in at the Central Methodist Church in Johannnesburg, a place where lots of foreigners seek refuge, the detainees were initially denied acccess to lawyers. They would have been deported instantly, but for a court order stopping their expulsion which was obtained by Lawyers for Human Rights, an NGO.
Civil-liberty campaigners argue that security operations targeting migrants have the dire effect of a reinforcing the belief that foreigners cause the country’s problems: just the sort of prejudice that led to a wave of violence in April, and an even bigger one in 2008. Some see the name of Operation Fiela as worse than a public-relations mistake; it seems to echo an inflammatory speech by King Goodwill Zwelithini, leader of the Zulus, in which he said that foreigners “dirty our streets”.
But even when the government tries a bit harder to get its presentation right, its heavy-handed actions neutralise any possible benefit. An announcement of a wave of arrests of migrants without documents, carrried on the government Twitter acccount, rather perversely carried the hash-tag WeAreAfrica.