No subject

stop the pogroms are necessary and appropriate steps to be taken
in the immediate period. It's not as if they're breaking strikes.
After all, what else is he supposed to do, sit on his hands and
do nothing?

These aren't long-term solutions, which would require both change
in the nature of South African society. I don't see anyone inside
of South Africa raising the familiar transitional programmatic
demand of a reduction in working hours to spread the existing jobs
around among those who seek employment. It's my IMPRESSION that=20
most of the poorest of the poor probably think that deporting the
foreign workers is what's needed. Many poor people in the United
States think that "illegal aliens" are a big problem here and they
should also be immediately deported.

Long-term solutions would involve both a change in the structure
of South African society, i.e., a socialist revolution, AND the
transformation of society in the adjacent countries of Africa.
In other words, socialist revolutions there, as well.=20

These are complex situations, long in the making, going back well
prior to the ending of apartheid. I would imagine, however, that
while in the one hand the remaining members of the white capitalist
class of South Africa are happy that these troubles are now being
attributed to the African National Congress, which controls the
South African government, they have reasons to fret, too. They
must be worried that the entire country will descend into much
more chaos and barbarism if some kind of interim solution in the
short terms isn't devised.

Blaming and finger-from the comfort of the United States and
Australia don't help, won't help, and can't help, when positive
alternative proposals and actions are needed. South Africans
there on the ground will have to devise appropriate methods of
dealing with these terrible challenges. If the political left
doesn't come up with come up with solutions, perhaps something
will come out of the churches or other community groups. It's
certainly much needed.


Walter Lippmann
Los Angeles, California
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South Africa Fighting Xenophobic Riots

Johannesburg, May 22 (Prensa Latina) South African President Thabo
Mbeki ordered the Armed Forces to contain the xenophobic violence
that broke out last week in Gauteng and spread to Kwazulu-Natal in
Chatsworth, Durban, with the partial toll of 20 dead and an
unspecified number of wounded.

Reports from Kwazulu-Natal mention an attack on presumed Malawi
citizens and a bar belonging to a Nigerian was hit with a gas bomb,
but the firemen prevented the fire from gutting the building.

At the port city of Chatsworth, Durban, hundreds of citizens from
Zimbabwe and Mozambique fled their homes in fear for their lives,
leaving all possessions behind while another group of immigrants
sought refuge at a police precinct. Isaac Tekia said he was ordered
to leave the city before midnight.

National Immigration Director Leonard Body said some 10,000
Mozambicans have left South Africa and another 3,000 requests
processed Wednesday alone were blamed on broad-spread
anti-immigration violence. Still, thousands chose to stay and wait
for official measures to stop the slaughter and assaults.

Meanwhile, students and professors from Witwatersrand University,
Johannesburg, organized a peaceful march to protest escalating
anti-immigrant violence in the country, which Professor Billim Yusun
called inhumane and a national shame.

hr/emw/arc/mf

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Attacks on foreigners spread in S. Africa African immigrants may soon
be forced to fight back against attacks by South African mobs. By
Scott Baldauf | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the May 22, 2008 edition

Johannesburg, South Africa - South Africa's violence against
foreigners took a turn for the worse on Wednesday as beleaguered
foreign immigrants organized themselves to fight back.

In the Johannesburg township of Tshepisong, Mozambicans and
Zimbabwean immigrants fled from gangs of South African residents,
while immigrants in other neighborhoods threatened to resist attacks.

"If it means I have to fight back to protect my wife and children and
property, I will," a Zimbabwean immigrant named Madalala Ndlovu told
the Pretoria Times. "If the police can't stop these thugs, then I
will. I'll kill them if I have to."

With community leaders urging against an escalation of violence, the
South African government announced that it would start deploying
military fixed-wing aircraft and armed personnel carriers to back up
police, as the violence entered its 10th day.

"The organization of foreigners is to be expected, given the police's
extreme difficulty in getting the violence under control," says Frans
Kronje, deputy chairman of the South African Institute of Race
Relations (SAIRR), a liberal think tank in Johannesburg.

"Foreigners have three options," says Mr. Kronje. "To go back to
Zimbabwe, which is not a nicer option than what they already face
here. To get into one of the informal camps around police stations,
churches, and community centers, which are already estimated to have
13,000 displaced people in the Johannesburg area alone. Or they can
organize to defend themselves, which then makes it much more
difficult for the police to control."

Violence spreading

With 24 dead, 13,000 homeless, and attacks spreading to the racially
mixed coastal city of Durban, South Africa's potent mix of economic
hardship and ethnic targeting shows no signs of stopping.

It's a problem that has been a long time coming, with many South
Africans blaming their government for failing to deliver on their
promises of providing jobs, housing, and better services after the
fall of apartheid in 1994, and also failing to ensure that South
Africans actually reap the benefits of the current economic boom.

If left unsolved, the current violence could have enormous domestic
social consequences for years to come and could damage the country's
plans to hold a soccer World Cup =E2=80=93 Africa's first =E2=80=93 in 2010=
.

"Everybody is baffled why this is happening now," says Carole Njoki,
World Vision's advocacy advisor in Johannesburg. "But locals see
foreigners taking their jobs, and they see that the allocation of
low-income housing is inequitable. With high inflation and high
unemployment, people's patience has reached the breaking point."

South Africa's working-poor population appears to be in downward
spiral of economic woe.

High food prices =E2=80=93 a global phenomenon =E2=80=93 have combined with
persistent unemployment =E2=80=93 officially estimated at 24 percent, but
thought to be as high as 40 percent =E2=80=93 to create an angry atmosphere
where local South Africans tend to blame the foreigners in their
midst.

Foreigners scapegoated for woes

The South African government, intentionally or not, often gives
citizens a scapegoat, blaming everything from high crime to the
stress on state services such as electricity, healthcare, and
education on the continued influx of Zimbabweans and Mozambicans.

Many experts say that the government, therefore, shares some of the
blame for sparking the current crisis.

"Essentially, [the government's] failures contributed to create a
perfect storm of lawlessness, poverty, and unfulfilled expectations,
which has now erupted into violence," the SAIRR said in a statement
this past weekend. "In failing to maintain the rule of law, the state
had conditioned many poor communities to violent behavior."

"The government has made terrible misstatements," says Kronje at the
SAIRR. "While there is truth that Zimbabweans do take jobs, the
problem is not the Zimbabweans. The problem is that there are not
enough jobs for everybody."

In the Johannesburg township of Soweto, police said they now know who
the ringleaders of recent violence were and would soon move in to
make arrests. Captain Mpande Khoza told the Sowetan newspaper that
shops belonging to foreign nationals were specifically targeted, and
the prime attraction seemed to be the money, property, and other
goods taken.

Mathias =E2=80=93 a Malawi native and gardener who would not give his last
name for fear of retribution =E2=80=93 says he has no idea what sparked the
violence against foreigners. But in the current environment, he now
trusts no one and says he has only a 25 percent chance of coming out
of the current crisis without significant loss of property.

"My building is next to a township," Mathias says. "And when I have a
friend over for tea, he looks around the room and sees a TV, a
stereo, and he keeps that image in his head. So when a time like this
comes along, and the police are doing nothing, he might say, 'Now's
the time. Let's take what we can.' "

Find this article at:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0522/p07s02-woaf.html

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DAVID WALTERS writes:
Walter does raise one interesting question: has their been any sort
of defense of these immigrants among native born S. Africans, either
in the communities or institutionally through the popular
organizations (churches, unions, etc), beyond the statements these
groups have made?

JOHN EDMUNDSON writes:
> The enthusiasm which some people express here for the
> South African Communist Party...

That would be you you're referring to then, given your recent
enthusiastic praise for Joe Slovo...
Cheers,
John

LOUIS PROYECT writes:
Walter, the next time you refer to subscribers as "laptop bombardiers",=20
you will be dropped from the list.

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     WALTER LIPPMANN
     Los Angeles, California
     Editor-in-Chief, CubaNews
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/
     "Cuba - Un Para=C3=ADso bajo el bloqueo"
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