Thousands flee S Africa attacks

[cigsandcoffee]

Source: BBC

Some 6,000 people have fled a wave of attacks on foreigners in South Africa, which has left at least 13 dead, aid workers say. "This is a classic refugee situation," Rachel Cohen from Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) told the BBC.

Many of those who have sought refuge in police stations and elsewhere are Zimbabweans, who have fled violence and poverty at home. Up to three million Zimbabweans are thought to be in South Africa.

The BBC's Caroline Hawley in Johannesburg says the immigrants have become a scapegoat for social problems, such as unemployment, crime and a lack of housing.

Over the weekend, correspondents say central Johannesburg resembled a war-zone, as armed police used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse mobs of South Africans looking for foreigners and looting foreign-owned shops.




Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7407914.stm

[ohio2007]

1. 12 die in South Africa anti-foreigner violence

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3314427&mesg_id=3314872

[uppityperson]

2. k&r for intolerance and Zimbabweans in S. Africa. Personal story/pict links

And for people everywhere who suffer due to this sort of crap.
Edited to add link to personal stories http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7408367.stm
pictures, some are GRAPHIC, shit. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/7407572.stm

[nashville_brook]

3. i heard a report on NPR tonight that the attacks seem coordinated, and that they aren't expected to

wane. it really pricked up my ears to South Africa news... so a k and an r...

[tctctctc]

9. Yeah...guns come in from various charitable orgs

its classic cointelpro...all over Africa, Southeast Asia, Central and South America. The Illuminati makes mucho money off of mafia-type arms deals.

It's so sad. Did you see this?

Money raised for Africa 'goes to civil wars'
5:00AM Wednesday May 14, 2008
By Linda Herrick
New Zealand Herald

LINK

[HamdenRice]

4. Horribly embarassing for S.A.'s leaders, many of whom were refugees

South Africa's political leaders have been mortified by this because many of them were refugees in SA's neighboring countries, which are the very countries these victims came from.

Countries like Mozambique, Angola, Botswana, Swaziland, Lesotho, Zimbabwe suffered various kinds of military interventions from apartheid South Africa precisely because those countries harbored exiled political refugees from South Africa.

So see South African citizens attack these political and economic refugees is among the most horribly thing many SAn political leaders can imagine.

It has to stop right now.

The problem is economic competition. South Africa has high unemployment and has had a sudden influx of very poor, unemployed people from Zimbabwe.

One difference was that the international community supported South African refugees so they were not seen to be as much of an economic burden when they were refugees.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

5. The Zimbabweans are targets

because they are often favored for jobs because they are more often literate and fluent in English than the South Africans they are competing for jobs with all the while accepting the same poor wages.

[Lasher]

6. And also because there's lots of Zimbabweans

Zimbabwea is experiencing political and economic collapse and more people are seeking refuge in South Africa, even as this anti-immigrant violence persists.

[ohio2007]

7. Xenophobic gangs,chanting anti apartheid songs,hunt down foreigners ( symptom of peak population ? ...

Johannesburg Gangs Attack
Xenophobic gangs are attacking foreigners in Johannesburg, South Africa. Police can do little to stop what has become one of the most violent periods since apartheid.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=234_1211339743

From Dafur to Johannesburg ; Africa,the forgotten Continent.

[HamdenRice]

8. In a word, NO

Southern Africa is hardly constrained by "peak population." The overwhelming majority of its problems are political.

And, by the way, Africa is not the "forgotten continent" to Africans, only to patronizing westerners.

[ohio2007]

10. no job,no food and civil unrest isn't a form of peak population ?

Then what is your definition ?

LOL

You 'rose colored glasses" types need to rethink why denial isn't just an african river running past the Egyptian bread riots.

[HamdenRice]

11. Let's see your proof

Until recently, southern Africa fed itself and exported food and other agricultural products. Then Zimbabwe descended into political chaos, which triggered economic chaos, which triggered the mass migration of Zimbabweans to South Africa.

So tell me, what independent variable can you show caused the current riots if it isn't the political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe? Did the population double? Did the amount of land shrink?

There is no evidence whatsoever of anything like "peak population" in southern Africa. In fact, as a result of the AIDS crisis, southern Africa's population is projected to be shrinking. How can you reconcile a region that exported food before, a lower population and "peak population" crisis?

Answer: You can't.

[ohio2007]

20. LOL, you answered the question for proof in your post

... mass migration of Zimbabweans to South Africa.



Your 'experts' prefer to label it ( a symptom )of global warming and you accept the fact that americans need to spend $45 trillion to FIX the planets fever .

[Karenina]

22. World Bank, IMF...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x364217

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

12. "bring me my machine gun"

the chanting of that would be more the gangs identifying themselves as supporters of Jacob Zuma (don't get me started)than saying anything in particular.

Africa is more than capable of feeding itself - the problem is that agriculture is under constant attack by ideological buffoons who are caught up in some idealized notion about pre-contact subsistence agriculture being the future of Africa. While the focus is on the Rhodesians - Black commercial farmers were also run off their land by Mugabe in Zimbabwe.

[bjorkfan]

13. How are Zimbabweans distinguished from the rest of SA society?

[Spouting Horn]

15. What, is that a

"they all look the same" stereotype?

[Sultana]

17. When they can't speak Zulu

Those that who could survived.

Burn in Hell murderers & the South African officials for being corrupt and too slow to respond to the situation. Rainbow Nation my ASS! :mad:

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

19. jobs...

The average Zimbabwean is better educated and more likely to be english speaking than the average poor South African - but they and the South African poor are fighting for the same jobs and the Zimbabweans are usually favored by white or asian employers.

You should see the bullshit between the different groups of whites, just bizzare.

[entanglement]

21. The same way a Walloon is distinguished in Flanders...by language

[Spouting Horn]

14. Gee

and here I thought that the Good Ole US of A was the only country in the world to treat immigrants like sh*t!

(At least that's the version foisted upon us like MeCHA and La Raza types)

[Carnea]

16. How soon before the when did we lose South Africa begins.

South Africa's latest leader (A thuggish criminal BTW) will sink the country further down the rabbit hole. We have seen this movie before. Pick pretty much any African country over the last forty years. The Whites and Indians will flee taking most of the intellectual, cultural and financial capital with them. The new leaders will pick the country clean massacre their own people, shop for shoes in Italy and blame western meddling and colonialism for the problems they themselves caused.

The west does share much of the blame of course and we will blame ourselves as churches filled with women and children are burned to the ground and political opponents are placed in truck tires and lit ablaze.

I hope I am wrong about South Africa. I hope it's future is more South Korea or India then Zimbabwe or Rwanda or Kenya or dozens of others.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

18. the fact the violent mobs are...

chanting Jacob Zuma's campaign song as they rampage is certainly ominous.

When Jacob Zuma was voted leader of the ANC a South African friend sent me a one line email that said "I guess were going to find out if their is something worse than apartheid"

But hey, what could go wrong when a guy who thinks AIDS is prevented by good hygine becomes leader of a country in the midst of an AIDS pandemic, and that is the least of the things wrong with him.

[Imajika]

23. I remember when Mugabe was a hero for many here on DU...

...very sad. He has destroyed and is effectively in the process of depopulating his nation - huge numbers fleeing to South Africa (sparking these attacks). Yet the anti-colonialism, blame the UK/US blather Mugabe spouted really had a lot of sympathy here at one time. Most people won't remember it, but I've been here long enough to recall all the Mugabe cheerleading.

From what I see, South Africa is moving in the same pathetic direction.

[Carnea]

24. The sad thing is the ANC has many cheerleaders still.

South Africa needs other more moderate voices and an ability to harness its young people productively. I see bad things ahead for this land and it is the last light still left on in an otherwise dark continent.

[FarrenH]

25. I voted for the ANC twice

It was a very different organisation under Mandela, with most of the fools on the periphery. Mandela and the elderly exile leadership were mostly good men, but it started to rot under Mbeki. Careerists and populists rose to prominence and the ANC's massive electoral advantage (65%) made ANC politicians increasingly arrogant. Mbeki's bizarre views on AIDS led the government to drag its feet on antiretrovirals in a country with the highest HIV infection rate in the world. And his pretence at "quiet diplomacy" on Zimbabwe and refusal to take any meaningful action as that country deteriorated led directly to the crisis we're in now. To top it all off, his administration has politicized every state and parastatal organ to a greater extent than Bush has in the US.

Its reached the point where his heir-apparent, Zuma, might actually be an improvement, despite his corrupt past and public stupidity. Zuma is all things to all men and has half-a-dozen hands up his ass, but at least his main puppet-masters are on the right side of several issues Mbeki is on the wrong side of. His labour backers are strongly opposed to Mugabe and have threatened to blockade the border more than once (not to prevent immigrants trickling through, but to stop any supply vehicles going into Zimbabwe). They have also strongly condemned the government's foot-dragging on ARV's, so despite Zuma's apparent ignorance about the disease its expected that the people that surround him will produce a more sensible AIDS response.

In any event I'm playing wait and see. For years I've excoriated many of my fellow white South Africans for their reflex negativity, which in most cases was informed by lingering racism, but its sadly reached the point where the liberation heroes of my youth are behaving like stereotypical banana-republicans. We still appear to have a free press, an independent judiciary and a free and fair electoral process, but if those institutions are seriously threatened, I'm going to take advantage of my Irish ancestory and get the hell out of here.