By Norm Dixon
"These people come here to take work opportunities ... We have people roaming the streets with degrees, but they do not get jobs because companies have given jobs to foreigners"; "I hate these people because they take our jobs"; "These people are taking our customers. Their prices are lower and many people buy their clothes." The people expressing these views are not supporters of Pauline Hanson's racist One Nation or Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front in France; they are black South African workers and traders on the streets of Johannesburg.
Four and a half years after the racist political structures of apartheid were dismantled, there is a growing frustration at the persistence of its economic and social legacies.
The African National Congress-led government's conservative economic policy — known as GEAR (Growth, Employment and Redistribution) — has failed to reduce unemployment and halt mass sackings.
Economic growth has stagnated; employment is falling by 4% a year. Unemployment stands at around 33% of the total work force and almost 50% of the black majority. Poverty is rising; redistribution of wealth is non-existent.
Because GEAR is based on minimising government spending, many of the promises contained in the ANC's 1994 election platform have not been fulfilled, the most notable being the pledge to build 1 million houses by 1999.
The government is also committed to reducing the public sector work force by 300,000. Privatisation and the contracting of public services are also likely to cause the further unemployment.
While GEAR has been loudly criticised by the 1.7 million-strong Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the South African Communist Party, this opposition has been largely restricted to resolutions, press statements and speeches. COSATU and the SACP have failed to mobilise employed and unemployed workers in a mass campaign to oppose GEAR and the pro-business orientation of the ANC government.
These circumstances have allowed discrimination, harassment and violence directed towards non-South Africans — particularly people from other parts of Africa — to flourish as they are made scapegoats for unemployment, poverty and reduced and inadequate public services. "Illegal aliens" are being blamed for increased crime — especially drug trafficking — and the spread of HIV and other diseases.
A survey released on October 13 found that xenophobia has increased markedly since 1994.
"Foreigners in South Africa, both legal and undocumented, have been subjected to a variety of physical attacks, human rights abuses and corrupt practices by both citizens and state officials", said the report, issued by the Centre for Policy Studies. It charged that politicians regularly accuse foreigners of being responsible for many of the country's social and economic ills.
Estimates of the number of illegal immigrants in South Africa range from 2 million to 8 million. Nearly 200,000 illegal immigrants were deported in 1997. The largest number come from Mozambique and Zimbabwe, but increasing numbers are travelling from as far away as Somalia.
The government minister responsible for immigration policy is Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi, a ruthless politician who has a long record of whipping up ethnic chauvinism for his own political ends.
According to a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report released in June, the "South African economy — especially farming, mining, security and construction — relies heavily on the cheap and easily exploitable labour of illegal immigrants, mostly from Mozambique, Lesotho, Zimbabwe and Swaziland. Undocumented labourers (including children) on farms work for a pittance, on average about five rands (US$1) per day. Because of the illegal status of their workers, farmers can exercise tremendous power over them."
HRW documented many cases of physical abuse by employers. Police rarely investigate or prosecute farmers for abuses and, in some instances, work hand in hand with employers by deporting workers before they are paid.
Police and prison officers regularly beat detained migrants. Police and other government officials frequently demand bribes in exchange for not detaining workers.
"Suspected undocumented migrants are identified by the authorities through unreliable means such as complexion, accent, or inoculation marks", HRW reported. "We documented cases of persons who claimed they were arrested for being 'too black', having a foreign name or, in one case, walking 'like a Mozambican'.
"Many of those arrested — up to 20% in some areas by our calculation — are actually South African citizens or lawful residents, who often have to spend several days in detention while attempting to convince officials of their legitimate status."
In September, human rights groups and organisations working with refugees estimated that in Cape Town alone 33 non-South Africans had been killed in anti-foreigner violence so far this year and 20 in 1997.
In recent years in Johannesburg, "protest" marches by anti-immigrant street vendors upset at competition from non-South Africans have assaulted and robbed foreign hawkers.
A 1997 survey by the Institute for Democracy in South Africa revealed that 25% of South Africans want a total ban on immigration, up from 16% in 1995. Both black and white respondents said they preferred white immigrants from Europe and North America over blacks from other parts of Africa.
The failure of the left to lead a campaign to challenge the economic and political direction of the government has allowed a political vacuum to develop that is being filled by reactionary forces.
On September 3, 150 members of an organisation called the Unemployed Masses of South Africa (UMSA) — which claims a membership of 23,000 — marched in Pretoria.
UMSA speakers threatened to boycott the 1999 general elections if unemployment was not reduced and demanded training for the jobless to allow them to become self-employed. UMSA president Godfrey Debeila blamed South Africa's high unemployment on "illegal aliens" who were "hired as cheap labour".
Later that day, UMSA members returning to Johannesburg by train attacked a number commuters from Senegal and Mozambique, accusing them of "stealing South Africans' jobs".
Two men were electrocuted after being chased on to the train roof by the mob. Another was thrown from the train and hit by another train.
A discarded placard near the scene said it all: "We want jobs not foreigners or else we will take the law into our own hands and do something negative".
Another right-wing organisation, the Malamulela Social Movement for the Unemployed, claims a membership of 300,000. It is openly hostile to the trade union movement and refuses to condemn anti-immigrant agitation.
Malamulela champions the government's GEAR policy and demands the "deregulation" of the labour market. A "flexible labour market is the only way to create jobs", Malamulela claims.
On October 19, Malamulela general secretary Mohlolo Kgopane spoke out against suggestions that the government may review GEAR in response to criticism by COSATU.
"As an organisation we are wary of a government which considers the interests of trade unions at the expense of the unemployed. Government has been held to ransom by a highly militant trade union movement which intervenes in the economy ... We need to ensure a favourable environment for economic growth and we need the government to deregulate the market", Kgopane said.
Kgopane said the economy was declining not because of GEAR but because of labour regulations that were not "internationally competitive".
In a statement issued in response to the September killings, Lawyers for Human Rights pointed out that targeting foreigners deflected attention from the real source of South Africa's economic problems.
"It also gives credence and credibility to those who are in a position to, but avoid, dealing with the more difficult issues of economic development, by allowing them to blame innocent and vulnerable segments of society, such a non-nationals", the group stated.
On September 4, the SACP said that to "unleash popular frustrations against the poor of other countries is a dangerous and diversionary ploy ... The present turmoil in the Great Lakes [eastern Congo and Rwanda] region of Africa should remind us of how dangerous xenophobic mobilisation can be."
The SACP said that unemployment was not caused by the "influx of poor working people from neighbouring countries or elsewhere in Africa".
Solutions to unemployment would come from focusing on "sustainable and coherent industrial policies", which would be discussed at a jobs summit of leading figures from government, business, trade unions and community groups, scheduled for October 31.