ANC Call for Refugee Camps in South Africa Hit by Rights Groups

South Africa’s ruling African National Congress called on the government to set up refugee camps as a way of stemming a surge of attacks against immigrants, a proposal criticized by human rights groups.

“One of the things the government must look at is the tightening of the management of immigration laws,” Gwede Mantashe, secretary-general of the ANC, said in an interview on Wednesday with the South African Broadcasting Corp. “If need be, establish refugee camps, screen people, check them, record them, vet them.”

South Africa is facing its worst violence against immigrants since 2008. At least five people, including a 14-year-old boy, have been killed after foreign shopowners were attacked in Durban and nearby townships. In January, looting and violence against mainly Somali, Ethiopian and Pakistani shop-owners in townships around Johannesburg left at least six people dead.

The tension comes against the backdrop of a weakening economy and a 24 percent jobless rate. While the government blames criminals rather than xenophobia for much of the violence, the presence of thousands of immigrants in South African townships has stoked resentment among some locals who see them as competitors for jobs and housing.

Mantashe reiterated his call for refugee camps in a video-clip posted by the ANC on Youtube on Wednesday.

“You can’t run a program dealing with refugees when you don’t have a refugee camp or transition camp,” he said. “That’s an idea worth looking at and worth being discussed, so in future we administer immigration more strictly.”
Inflaming Tensions

“When we say we’re integrating people into our communities, who are we integrating into our communities if we don’t know them, we have no record of them, we don’t have any background?” Mantashe said.

Human rights groups have criticized the call for camps and warned it may inflame tensions between locals and immigrants.

“We reject encampment completely,” Patricia Erasmus, manager of the Refugee and Migrant Rights Programme at Lawyers for Human Rights, said by phone from Durban on Thursday. “It has been shown in other parts of the continent to be a very dangerous and unhelpful way of housing and protecting refugees.”

Foreign nationals in South Africa, regardless of their legal status, are entitled to protection of most of the basic human rights that citizens have, according to Roni Amit, a researcher at the African Centre for Migration and Society, based at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.
Spaza Shops

The Constitutional Court has ruled that a ban on the right to work for asylum seekers and refugees violates the right to human dignity, while the Supreme Court of Appeal has recently said they are entitled to engage in self-employment, including running small shops in townships, known as spazas, Amit said in an e-mail.

“To call for encampment is a violation of these rights and also flies in the face of our domestic legislation,” Erasmus said. “We are highly concerned about these statements and we feel public officials have a duty to make much more considered statements when they speak to the media.”

On March 23, the Durban-based Mercury newspaper cited Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini as saying foreigners were depriving South Africans of economic opportunities and should return home. The king’s office said his speech was misinterpreted.

Lawyers for Human Rights called on President Jacob Zuma to equally condemn the violence and the comments from public officials contradicting the legislation protecting refugees’ rights in South Africa.
Zuma Speech

Zuma is due to address the xenophobic attacks when he speaks to lawmakers in Cape Town on Thursday.

“We have seen the anger, we accept that people have been frustrated,” Zuma said in an interview with SABC on Wednesday. “This now must stop because we cannot continue killing one another.”

The streets of Durban’s city center became a battleground between locals and immigrants on April 14, with police using water cannons and rubber bullets to disperse crowds. More than 1,400 foreigners have fled their homes in Durban and nearby townships, and are being housed in displacement camps set up by the government. At least 74 people have been arrested.

A foreigner entering South Africa seeking refugee status is first issued with a non-renewable “asylum transit permit,” valid for a period of 14 days, according to the Home Affairs Ministry’s website. At the end of a documentation process that includes submission of supporting documents, interviews and assessment, the asylum seeker may be granted refugee status.