VZCZCXRO2264
RR RUEHDU RUEHJO RUEHMR
DE RUEHSA #1740/01 2391015
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 271015Z AUG 09
FM AMEMBASSY PRETORIA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 9443
INFO RUEHUJA/AMEMBASSY ABUJA 1420
RUEHOR/AMEMBASSY GABORONE 5535
RUEHSB/AMEMBASSY HARARE 3884
RUEHTO/AMEMBASSY MAPUTO 6118
RUEHMR/AMEMBASSY MASERU 2890
RUEHMB/AMEMBASSY MBABANE 4566
RUEHTN/AMCONSUL CAPE TOWN 7081
RUEHDU/AMCONSUL DURBAN 1175
RUEHJO/AMCONSUL JOHANNESBURG 9448

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 PRETORIA 001740 
 
SIPDIS 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL PGOV PREF PHUM SF
SUBJECT: XENOPHOBIA IN SOUTH AFRICA: ROOT CAUSES REMAIN, 
UNCHECKED 
 
REF: A. 08 PRETORIA 1544 
     ¶B. 08 PRETORIA 1549 
     ¶C. 08 PRETORIA 1563 
     ¶D. 08 PRETORIA 2174 
     ¶E. 08 PRETORIA 2014 
     ¶F. 08 PRETORIA 2379 
     ¶G. PRETORIA 553 
     ¶H. PRETORIA 1455 
 
 
------- 
Summary 
------- 
 
¶1.  South African townships remain at risk of renewed 
xenophobic violence, such as was seen in the mid-2008 mob 
attacks on African migrants.  Foreigners make easy scapegoats 
for enduring grievances of poverty, unemployment, housing 
shortages, and poor public services, and the SAG has not 
taken deterrent steps to enforce the rule of law or provide 
constructive outlets for conflict resolution.  Politicians 
have largely ducked the issue, and the SAG has dragged its 
feet on a promised inquiry into the sources of violence and 
prevention strategies.  Civil society organizations and 
church groups have launched small grass-roots initiatives of 
community reconciliation, to fill the leadership vacuum left 
by the government.  End Summary. 
 
---------------------------------- 
Recap: Violence of May - June 2008 
---------------------------------- 
 
¶2.  In mid-May 2008, xenophobic attacks against foreign 
African migrants and ethnic minorities broke out in poor 
squatter settlements near Johannesburg, then escalated into a 
wave of violence in townships across the country.  The 
attacks were brutal and destructive.  Some victims were 
beaten to death, others stabbed, while their shacks and small 
shops were looted and burned.  An estimated 62 persons were 
killed, 670 persons seriously injured, and as many as 80,000 
migrants displaced.  Although the SAG never published final 
statistics, it estimated that as many as 70,000 foreigners 
(mostly Mozambicans and Zimbabweans) fled South Africa. 
Rioters vocally blamed immigrants for shortages of jobs and 
housing, and for increases in crime.  The events shocked 
South Africans, affronting their post-1994 ethos as an 
inclusive "rainbow nation," and led to wide public debate and 
soul-searching over national values, social ills, and 
historically ingrained habits of violence and intolerance 
(refs A, B).  This year, NGOs have publicly warned that the 
SAG has made negligible effort to avert a repetition of last 
year's horrors. 
 
--------------------------------- 
Rule of Law: Too Late, Too Little 
--------------------------------- 
 
¶3.  Law enforcement's ineffectual actions during the attacks 
will serve as scant deterrent in future.  Field reports 
indicated police officers were often late on the scene, 
allegedly waiting for the worst to subside, or else 
impotently observing at the sidelines.  In the worst cases, 
police who were residents of affected townships were rumored 
to sympathize with their neighbors' violent ejection of 
foreigners, or at least to feel powerless to oppose popular 
mobs.  One cop was famously captured in a news photo 
gesturing a "thumbs up" to attackers.  Despite lofty national 
goals of inclusivity, front-line government workers are 
commonly said to treat foreigners with resentment and 
hostility.  Many police view foreigners with suspicion, as 
sources of crime and targets for exploitation and/or 
deportation.  Only the Army, deployed by President Mbeki 
after nearly two weeks of unrest, had the capacity and 
credibility to restore order. 
 
¶4.  Public prosecutors were slow, weak, and superficial in 
Q4.  Public prosecutors were slow, weak, and superficial in 
punishing perpetrators, sending a message of impunity to 
ringleaders.  The Department of Justice recorded about 1,300 
arrests, with a total of 1,446 charges brought against 421 
persons in seven of the nine provinces (mainly in Western 
Cape, Gauteng, and Kwa Zulu Natal).  Although provinces 
created special courts for these cases, months passed before 
 
PRETORIA 00001740  002 OF 003 
 
 
the first case went to trial.  Wits University's Forced 
Migration Studies Project (FMSP) reported that only 70 
convictions had been achieved by year-end.  Lawyers for Human 
Rights (LHR)'s Jacob van Garderen adds that these convictions 
are for relatively light offenses of public violence, none 
for murder, and no jail sentences have been handed down. 
Further, as FSMP's Dr. Loren Landau notes, those arrested 
were mostly minor thugs, the visible direct agents of 
attacks, while the planners remained at liberty.  Field 
research by the Institute of Security Studies (ISS) and the 
FMSP (ref G) have implicated local ward politicians in 
orchestrating attacks to gain political clout with residents. 
 FSMP found the identities of those responsible are common 
knowledge in their communities, but not one has been accused. 
 
---------------------------------------- 
SAG Reluctant -- to Admit, and to Assist 
---------------------------------------- 
 
¶5.  Politicians of the governing ANC party have adopted 
various forms of denial over the xenophobic motivations of 
the violence, and a promised official inquiry has yet to 
begin.  Slow to acknowledge the attacks, then President Mbeki 
did not interrupt his travels to address them, even when they 
were headline news at home and abroad.  ANC leaders variously 
characterized the attacks as isolated incidents of 
criminality, denied their linkage to poverty and social 
welfare grievances, and even fed speculation that a covert 
right-wing "third force" was at work to tarnish the 
government's image before 2009 elections.  (This is despite 
the ANC's identifying xenophobia as an impending national 
threat at its party conference in December 2007.)  Pressed by 
refugee rights NGOs, the South African Human Rights 
Commission (SAHRC) promised in late 2008 a thorough inquiry 
into the violence, but to date no investigation has been 
launched.  Over the last year, the SAG has been quick to 
attribute any isolated cases of violence against foreigners 
to random criminality, unrelated to any xenophobic trend, 
evidently wishing to bury the issue from public debate. 
 
¶6.  The SAG dragged its feet on offering humanitarian 
assistance to foreign victims, acting only under heavy 
pressure from the media and rights NGOs.  Temporary shelters 
for displaced foreigners were grudgingly provided by 
provincial governments (ref C), explicitly on a short-term 
and exceptional basis, and ultimately with a determined 
effort to shut them down and disperse migrants (refs D, E). 
The SAG's very liberal stance on immigration and its loosely 
managed asylum process are normally a boon to migrants, who 
enjoy freedom of movement and license to work here -- 
compared to other African countries where they would be 
confined to camps.  A reaction to apartheid restrictions, the 
SAG's approach is one of integration of newcomers, with an 
upside of minimal constraint and a downside of minimal 
protection.  Pressured by UNHCR (ref F), NGOs, and the public 
to provide temporary refuges, provincial governments yielded 
slightly on their initial end-August limit but then battled 
in the courts to shut them by the end of September. 
 
---------------------------------------- 
Community Outreach: A Missed Opportunity 
---------------------------------------- 
 
¶7.  The SAG has undertaken no proactive campaign of community 
Q7.  The SAG has undertaken no proactive campaign of community 
outreach to address turmoil in the townships and create 
non-violent channels of conflict resolution.  Members of the 
ANC's national executive committee visited hotspots to 
encourage tolerance, but there was no concerted political 
response beyond these brief walkabouts.  Migrants have 
successfully reintegrated in many areas, but on the basis of 
individual efforts, unfostered by any new policies or 
programs, and often under continued threat.  As the country 
whose Truth And Reconciliation Commission was a world model 
of bridging deep national divides, South Africa has the 
experience to lead initiatives in church groups and town 
halls to mend rifts between locals and migrants.  In March 
2009, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) 
launched the "One" campaign (funded by State/PRM) of youth 
role models, township activism, and radio programs (with 
popular station Metro FM), with messages of "tolerance, human 
dignity and unity in diversity."  This campaign, and others 
underway by LHR and church groups, are civil society 
 
PRETORIA 00001740  003 OF 003 
 
 
undertakings attempting to fill the vacuum of SAG inaction. 
 
------------------------------ 
Outlook: Violence Set to Recur 
------------------------------ 
 
¶8.  COMMENT.  Most observers expect attacks against 
foreigners will inevitably flare again, since their 
underlying causes persist, and the SAG has not taken 
deterrent steps.  Migrants are easy scapegoats for the 
frustrations of poverty, unemployment, housing shortages, and 
poor public services -- widespread grievances which remain 
unresolved.  Recent protests against lack of service delivery 
are an echo of similar 2008 demonstrations which preceded 
attacks, giving some observers a worrying sense of deja vu. 
Isolated incidents against foreigners (especially Somalis) 
are a regular part of life in South Africa.  Tensions are 
most acute in the poorest shantytowns, where police control 
is more tenuous, and where some cops may share gangs' worst 
prejudices against non-nationals.  The political economy 
documented by ISS and Wits, of petty officials exploiting 
xenophobic prejudices for personal or party gain, remains 
intact.  The root causes of township violence cut widely 
across SAG ministries, yet no agency advocates for the rights 
and protection of foreign migrants.  Conditions are little 
changed from last year and are ripe to re-erupt.  One small 
consolation is that the horrific experiences of 2008, coupled 
with the SAG's heightened sensitivity to world opinion before 
the 2010 World Cup, might prompt faster SAG responses the 
next time around.  End Comment. 
GIPS