The anti-illegal immigration group March and March have set a new deadline of 30 September, demanding the deportation of all undocumented foreign nationals by that date.
A small group of protestors, led by its leader Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma, gathered outside the Durban ICC on Monday, 17 August, where the 46th SADC summit is taking place.
Addressing the crowd, Ngobese-Zuma slammed President Cyril Ramaphosa’s statement during a public lecture on Friday, in which he expressed deep shame over the treatment of fellow Africans over the past few months.
Ngobese-Zuma says the statement shows that Ramaphosa is not taking the issue seriously, and that Presidents of affected countries need to create opportunities for their own people.
She was quoted as saying:
“You know, if the government wants to have a proper discussion, they need to address the issue for what it is without calling it xenophobia because it is not xenophobia. For the president to say I’m ashamed, I’m ashamed, it paints a wrong picture of a president that doesn’t understand why his people are out in the streets today. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. The people that should be ashamed are the ones whose people keep flocking into someone else’s country claiming to be looking for opportunities.”
During a SADC public lecture at the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Westville Campus in Durban, President Ramaphosa stated that South Africans are “deeply concerned and ashamed that nationals from other countries have in recent months been subjected to discrimination and ill-treatment.”
“If we are serious about building an integrated region, we must build a Southern Africa in which the equal rights of all people are respected, where all people are treated decently. We cannot submit to intimidation and harassment of people seen as coming from elsewhere.”
Ramaphosa said the “criminal actions of a few within our communities” are a repudiation of the solidarity upon which the SADC Community was founded.
“We cannot preach integration at summits and practise exclusion in our streets. I say this as a South African, to South Africans, first of all. But this is a broader challenge to which we must apply ourselves as a Community. Southern Africa has borne witness to the movement of people over millennia. Our people are the product of migration. Migration accounts for much of the diversity, vibrancy and richness of this region.”
The President added that the movement of people across regions should be based upon established principles, protocols and laws.
He said the conditions that drive migration need to be addressed, including conflict, instability, governance failure, poverty and social discord.
“We need to create equal economic opportunity and build inclusive institutions of governance. We seek a region where people move out of choice, not out of desperation. None of what we seek for our region is achievable without peace. Investment does not flow where there is conflict. People’s basic social needs cannot be provided for in a war zone. An economic corridor cannot operate where territory is contested.”
The South African government is meanwhile seeking reimbursement from Malawi, Nigeria and Ethiopia, to the tune of $18.5 million, which it spent on repatriating foreign nationals.
It is estimated that 178,000 foreign nationals have left the country following the June 30 ultimatum. This includes a mix of voluntary departures, home-country repatriations, and formal state deportations.
