Edgar Maculo spent the night at Primrose police station in the east of Johannesburg. He feared for the life of his wife and their 10-month-old baby. He is miles away from his home in Mozambique. Should anything happen to him, his relatives would be forced to transport his remains back home, just like his compatriot, Ernesto Nhamuave, the man who was burned to death in 2008 in the same East Rand region.
He fights back tears when I ask him if the recent events remind him of 2008. Fear is the only thing preventing him from returning to Mozambique, even though South Africa is a place he now calls home.
After the xenophobic attacks almost seven years ago, Africa’s most industrialized economy is yet again battling to exorcize the demon of violence against foreign nationals.
Zulu monarch, King Goodwill Zwelithini, and President Jacob Zuma’s son, Edward, have been blamed for fueling attacks on foreigners with their statements.
“We are requesting those who come from outside to please go back to their countries,” said Zwelithini.
“South Africa was too accommodative to foreign nationals unnecessarily,” said Zuma.
Following Zwelithini’s comments, at least five foreigners were killed as South Africans hunted foreigners, looted shops and vandalized property.
The attacks which started in Durban spread to Johannesburg. Police patrolled the streets during a series of standoffs between foreign store owners and attackers.
There are fears this could degenerate into ugly scenes seen in 2010 when images of a Mozambican in flames went all over the world.
Zwelithini blames foreigners for dirty streets and crime.
“There are unsightly goods hanging all over our shops. They dirty our streets. We cannot even recognize which shop is which. They are all blocked by foreigners,” Zwelithini is reported to have said at a meeting in Pongola, northern KwaZulu Natal, at the end of March.
Zwelithini’s comments have been criticized by human rights groups, religious leaders and political activists.
Thousands gathered in Durban to participate in a ‘peace march’ on April 16 in a bid to stop the violence.
Independent human rights organization, Lawyers for Human Rights, condemned the intolerance and blatant disregard for the rights of foreigners in South Africa.
“Most concerning is the use of aggressive measures, including rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannons, by police to disperse the roughly 300 foreign nationals who defied the revocation of their permission to protest against recent xenophobic attacks in the area,” the organization said in a statement.
“Unfortunately, foreign nationals are not given a platform to voice their fears and concerns.”
The rest of Africa has decried the violence.
Nigerians have rebuked South Africa with hashtags on social media and placards at the South African Embassy in Lagos.
“The on-going activity in South Africa is shocking. It is unfortunate that some South Africans are oblivious to the economic contribution foreigners have made to the country over the years,” says Victor Teriba, a lecturer in Lagos.
“These terrible acts have sent shockwaves through the continent and indeed, the rest of the world. To think that foreigners are being maltreated is rather depressing,” says Zainab Maisani, an Abuja resident.
“A lot of South Africans are mortified by the actions of our countrymen towards foreigners and they should be brought to order immediately,” says Xolani Mabaso, a South African living in Nigeria.
Worried Kenyans persistently called friends and family in South Africa to check on them. Many also took to social media to condemn the violence, others simply to vent. The foreign affairs office in Nairobi announced Kenya was ready to evacuate its citizens from South Africa.
Malawi and Somalia started repatriating its countrymen.
President Zuma also condemned the attacks.
“We cannot continue killing one another as Africans who belong to the same continent. What is happening in our country is not acceptable.”
While economists and political analysts say that the xenophobic violence is a symptom of unemployment and inequality in South Africa, some government officials disagreed.
Home Affairs Minister, Malusi Gigaba, blamed a ‘third force’. He claims there are people in the shadows that are bent on destroying South Africa’s image.
“There are people who are behind this and their main aim is to destroy the image of and embarrass South Africa internationally. These people buy the youth drugs and arm them to go on a looting frenzy,” Gigaba said in an interview with radio station Ukhozi FM.
Tens of thousands of foreigners, mostly from other African states and Asia, have moved to South Africa since white-minority rule ended in 1994.
It is estimated that about 4% of the world’s population comprises of diaspora communities, a reality that South Africans should start embracing.

Demons On The  Streets Of Hate

Terrorism in Africa did not begin on September 11, 2001. It began in Sudan in the 1990s, where Osama bin Laden operated and where an attack against Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was organized.
Three years later, in 1998, Al Qaeda cells blew up the American embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam.
In retaliation for these attacks, the United States (US), in addition to an attack in Afghanistan, bombed a chemical plant in Sudan, claiming that it was producing elements for chemical weapons for Al Qaeda.
From the time of these attacks, US policy in Somalia became preoccupied with searching for, capturing, and killing the perpetrators of those attacks who were believed to have taken refuge there.
<div id="attachment_2882" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2882" class="size-medium wp-image-2882" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/000_Par7496840-300x221.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="221" />A picture taken from a video distributed to Nigerian journalists in the country&#8217;s north in recent days through intermediaries and obtained by AFP on March 5, 2013 reportedly shows Abubakar Shekau (C), the suspected leader of Nigerian Islamist extremist group Boko Haram, flanked by six armed and hooded fighters in an undisclosed place. The suspected leader of Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram denies any ceasefire deal with the government in a video obtained today. Abubakar Shekau makes no mention of kidnappings in the video, including last month&#8217;s abduction of seven members of a French family. Boko Haram was blamed for the kidnapping that occurred just over the Nigerian border in Cameroon. RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE &#8211; MANDATORY CREDIT &#8220;AFP PHOTO / BOKO HARAM&#8221; &#8211; NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS &#8211; DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS</div>
The seeds of later US policy and all that has followed in Somalia were planted then.
Yet the vast majority of conflict and terrorist activity in Africa is not linked to international sponsorship or any vast conspiracy against the West.
The Lords Resistance Army in Uganda, the various militia in eastern Congo, the militants in the Niger Delta, the extremist sects in Kenya, Nigeria, and elsewhere are the principal security threats to the African population.
Africa is no more immune to the threats from terrorism than any other continent.
Its combination of relatively weak states, ethnic and religious diversity and sometimes discrimination, its poverty, and in many places its ungoverned space all lend Africa a significant susceptibility to the growth of radical and sometimes internationally connected movements that employ terrorism.
Some of these are aimed specifically at African governments, for example, the radical Islamic Boko Haram in Nigeria or the Mombasa Republican Council in Kenya.
These groups pose serious security challenges to key countries and potentially even a threat to the continent’s new success.
The biggest story in Africa south of the Sahara over the past few years hasn’t been plague, famine or war but the emergence of the world’s poorest continent as one of its fastest growing – thanks to factors that include fresh investment, economic reform, the spread of new technology, higher prices for commodity exports and generally greater political stability.
Nigeria and Kenya, the most important economies in West and East Africa respectively, are pillars of the change in Africa as well as having the largest and most easily accessible markets for foreigners.
Both now face growing battles with Islamist groups; Kenya throwing troops into neighboring Somalia in pursuit of Al-Shabaab fighters, Nigeria struggling with bombings and shootings by its home-grown Boko Haram sect.
Kenyan forces pushed into southern Somalia to drive back Al Qaeda-linked militants, blamed by Nairobi for a string of border incursions and kidnappings, including the abductions of foreign tourists from coastal resorts which have damaged one of Kenya’s most important industries.
Al-Shabaab has in return called for all-out war on Kenya and ‘huge blasts’ by its unknown number of supporters there. Grenade attacks, that have seen many killed and several wounded, jangled nerves in Nairobi, where more than 200 people died in an Al Qaeda bombing of the US embassy in 1998.
Killings by Nigeria’s Boko Haram sect &#8211; whose name means Western education is sinful &#8211; had been largely confined to a remote corner of the semi-desert northeast and ignored by much of the country until bombings struck the capital Abuja, killing hundreds. A suicide car bombing on the United Nations headquarters in August killed 24 people.
Boko Haram is now by far the biggest security headache for President Goodluck Jonathan in Africa’s most populous nation – which, if estimates of population and the Muslim-Christian balance are to be believed, might have more Muslims than any country in the Middle East.
While Islam in Africa has traditionally co-existed comfortably with other religions, more heavily populated Muslim regions are often relatively marginalized economically and politically. This leaves plenty of ground for radicalism to sprout.
Getting sucked into a foreign war against a Somali enemy, which drove out Ethiopia’s far more experienced army in 2009, is just what Kenya doesn’t need at a time when it is already in the doldrums due to drought, soaring inflation and a plummeting currency.
It is not only the cost in lives and money that count.
Counterinsurgency wars – even in regions distant from the main centers of business – can harm foreign investor sentiment starting to warm to Africa. They drain resources that might better be used improving infrastructure or education and lead to a greater role for security establishments at the heart of power and policy making, rarely a recipe for success in post-independence Africa.
Beyond the biggest countries, poorer neighbors may be at greater risk. A flood of weapons across the Sahara desert from Libya’s civil war – as well as hundreds of thousands of now unemployed former migrant workers – could further destabilize West Africa’s Sahel countries, already prey to kidnappings and attacks by Al Qaeda’s regional offshoot.
The challenge in combating terrorism in Africa is balancing a legitimate program of security improvements with a continuing and sustained attack on poor governance, poverty, and deprivation of human rights.
Getting the balance right is particularly acute because the democracies in Africa are fragile, and any crackdown on terrorist activity has to be carried out with great sensitivity to the historic grievances of marginalized groups, the incipient struggle for human rights, and the relatively weak civilian oversight of the military and security institutions.
Overall, optimism remains strong. Businesses compare Africa with China and India in past decades and eye a market of a billion consumers with money to spend on more than just basic survival.
Whether or not the threat of Islamist militant groups can be contained to the margins, the extra strain could certainly be felt in a continent where many have only recently seen good reason to believe in a better future.

Tag: Attacks

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

Demons On The Streets Of Hate

Be Afraid