adminSA companies with operations north of the border are suffering a fierce backlash from the ongoing wave of xenophobic violence, blamed on remarks by Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini.
SA vehicles were pelted with stones in Mozambique recently and SA companies are reportedly being threatened with closure in Nigeria. Protests have been held at various SA embassies across the continent, and several SA musicians have been forced to cancel concerts abroad.
The Guardian reports that the tit-for-tat measures follow a surge of attacks on foreigners in Durban, Johannesburg and other parts of SA, in which at least six people have been killed, more than 5 000 displaced, and shops looted and razed.
President Jacob Zuma told a crowd that those who wanted to go home would be helped, but his message to those remaining was: “We are firstly going to stop violence and then allow them to stay here in peace.”
The rest of Africa is increasingly questioning this assertion, however. The xenophobic mayhem has sharpened a sense of “us and them”, causing bitterness among nations that hosted thousands of SA exiles during the struggle against apartheid.
The SA government hastily convened a meeting of Africa ambassadors and high commissioners last week in an attempt to provide reassurance that it was taking their concerns seriously. But Jeff Radebe, minister in the presidency in South Africa, conceded that the country’s companies that operate in the rest of Africa could be at risk of reprisals.
Officials of the newly elected Nigerian government handed a memorandum to the SA High Commission in that country, demanding that SA take swift action against the attackers, or else SA business in Nigeria would be shut down.
According to a Business Times report, this will be of particular concern to MTN as Nigeria is the cellular giant’s largest market, responsible for a third of its revenue for the year to December.
On Friday, Chris Moroleng, MTN’s head of corporate affairs, said none of its staff had been threatened.
He said MTN was seen as a local rather than an SA company in most of its markets. Other companies with exposure to Nigeria — including Standard Bank, Nedbank, Shoprite, Sun International, Old Mutual, Naspers’s MultiChoice and Massmart — may yet feel the sting of this threat. Citizens in a number of African countries have vowed to retaliate, which puts several other SA companies at risk, including Barclays Africa, Vodacom and SABMiller.
SA engineers working on mines and at a gas plant in Mozambique have been taken to secure camps after threats of reprisal xenophobic attacks.
The Times reports they were evacuated from their workplaces as several countries begin demanding answers from the SA government about the attacks on their citizens. Sasol spokesperson Alex Anderson said work had stopped at its gas plant in Inhambane, Mozambique, after fears that SA staff would be attacked.
And several sources said that SA companies Kentz Engineering and DRA Engineering had evacuated staff from coal mines in Tete in Mozambique. Paul Youens, commenting on behalf of Kentz, said: “The safety and security of our employees is paramount and we already have plans in place to mitigate any risks to our project teams.”
While DRA Engineering did not respond to calls, a source at a Tete mine said: “The moment management heard of the threats, which for now are verbal, all South Africans were evacuated. They have been moved to secure camps. Just as South Africans are upset that foreigners are getting work in South Africa, Mozambicans are too,” said the source.
Brand South Africa is desperately mounting a fight-back after the attacks, mainly aimed at African nationals, left its reputation sullied and Pretoria grappling with a major backlash from the rest of the continent, writes Lee Mwiti, deputy editor, Mail & Guardian Africa.
Mwiti says the condemnation from the region over the attacks was near-unanimous, with increasing calls for a boycott of the country’s multinationals and retaliation against other interests, and in some cases, against its nationals.
The anti-SA sentiment was laced with sharp reminders that SA had forgotten too soon the role the rest of Africa played in its anti-apartheid struggle, and which now provides new markets for its expansion-hungry companies. And, Mwiti points out, a lot of the anger was directed towards the ambivalent responses by SA authorities, some of who are accused of sparking the attacks.
In the early days some ministers seemed to justify the attacks, saying foreign nationals should share their business secrets if they want to prevent attacks and looting. Then they got caught up in arguing whether the attacks were really xenophobic, simply criminal, and lately whether they were “Afrophobic”; losing valuable time that would have been used to roll out a solid response plan to end the violence.
But as the scale of African anger became apparent, authorities scrambled to pacify the rest of the continent, while struggling to balance their domestic political interests.
Internal pressure has also grown, as citizens started to point out that the state’s failure to nurture inclusive growth at the expense of the elite has been increasingly recast as an immigration problem, leaving them exposed to the continental blow-back. Mwiti argues that isolation by the rest of Africa would greatly harm both its economic and foreign policy interests, with the country tussling with Nigeria for a permanent seat on a reformed UN Security Council, if it ever happens.
Reacting to the xenophobic violence, Zambia’s former high commissioner to SA Leslie Mbula said in a report in The Post Zambia that the issue should not be swept under the carpet. Mbula said Africa should urgently discuss the violent attacks on foreigners in SA with a high level of honesty without hiding the continent’s displeasure.
Mbula, who is also former secretary to the cabinet, said South Africans should not think others were not capable of reacting to the xenophobic attacks.
“South Africa should not forget that they are actually a leader in this region, if not in Africa and we look to South Africa.
“Now when things like that (attacks) are happening, it reduces that power base of South Africa, politically, socially and if people don’t go to South Africa or buy South African (products), what will happen?” He said South Africans can only prosper if there is inter-trade with other African countries.
The UN has expressed concern at what it called repeated incidents of xenophobia in SA dating as far back as 2008.
In a statement by the High Commissioner for Human Rights issued through the office of the secretary-general’s spokesperson in New York, the global body urged the government to accelerate the enactment of legislation that will tackle hate crimes in the country while formulating future policies on migrants that conform to international standards.
President of the Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Janine Myburgh, said dealing with the consequences of the problem was a continuing challenge, but there would be little success until its causes were dealt with. She said these were two aspects of the same problem. “We should be asking why people are fleeing from African countries and what can be done about it.
“I’m afraid we are all dealing with the fall-out from poor governance, corruption and the actions of warlords.”
Another big problem was the export of capital from countries with vast oil and diamond resources. “If more of this capital was put to work in Africa to build infrastructure and improve healthcare and education, we would not have the influx of people desperate for work. These are some of the things we need to talk about if we are to find long-term solutions to the xenophobia problem,” she said.
“It is important to understand that the people fleeing their own countries are among the best-qualified and most enterprising workers. They are motivated and compete fiercely for jobs and trade,” she said.
The SA government has moved to reassure foreign investors that they are welcome to do business in SA in the wake of the attacks, reports Business Report.
SA missions in other countries have also been instructed to brief those governments about SA’s efforts to quell the violence. Briefing journalists in Pretoria, ministers in the justice, crime prevention and security cluster insisted government was on top of the problem, including arresting those involved.
Intelligence Minister David Mahlobo said so far no South Africans currently living in other countries had been injured as a result of retaliation, including during the stoning of SA buses and trucks near the Lebombo border post. — Agencies.
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