Xenophobic attacks mar Mbeki's legacy

With the end of apartheid and the emergence of black majority rule, South Africa became a leading advocate of the African "renaissance," spearheading moves to improve governance across the world's poorest continent and move it toward economic and political integration.

As South African companies moved quickly across the continent, tapping into new markets and fuelling domestic economic expansion, Africa's biggest economy also drew millions of immigrants - many of whom came illegally - seeking better-paying jobs.

However, xenophobic attacks on African migrants which erupted across the country over three weeks in May have put a wrench in relations between the former apartheid enclave and the rest of Africa, raising questions about South Africa's place on the continent.

The attacks, which began on 11 May in Johannesburg's Alexandria township, quickly spread to other towns and cities as mobs blaming migrants for shortages of jobs and housing killed or maimed them, and burned or looted their properties.

Worst hit were the biggest migrant communities in South Africa - Zimbabweans, Mozambicans, Malawians, Somalis and to a lesser extent Nigerians and other Africans. As the worst violence to rock the country since the end of apartheid in 1994 seemed to get out of control, President Thabo Mbeki, who succeeded Nelson Mandela in 1999, called out troops to help police finally restore order.

More than 50 people were killed and hundreds injured in the violence, with more than 50,000 displaced people taking refuge in police stations and churches. Several thousand from neighboring countries returned home, giving up their South African dreams.

Mbeki declared the attacks "a disgrace" in a national broadcast, vowing that his government would do everything necessary to end the xenophobic violence.

"It is fundamentally wrong and unacceptable that we should treat people who come to us as friends as though they are our enemies," he said in parliament on 25 May in a speech to mark Africa Day, a day set aside by the African Union (AU) to celebrate continental unity.

"We should also never forget that the same peoples welcomed us to their own countries when many of our citizens had to go into exile as a result of the brutality of the apartheid system," he added.

Analyst: Government policies to blame

In many African countries that hosted South African refugees during the apartheid years, there are feelings of hurt and perceptions of ingratitude on the part of ordinary South Africans.

L'Observateur, a daily newspaper in Burkina Faso, in West Africa, captured the widespread view across the continent by describing the wave of anti-foreigner feelings that swept South Africa as "a sign of ingratitude" to fellow Africans by South Africans.

With the initial shock of the attacks over, various explanations have been proffered for the violence. Government officials at first blamed the media disproportionate reporting, but later suggested that a "third force" of white right-wingers was responsible, citing the rapid spread of the violence and apparent organization of the perpetrators. However, most critics cite numerous failings by the government for having created the atmosphere in which the violence was bred.

"The violence we have experienced over the past week can be directly attributed to a series of policy failures on the part of Thabo Mbeki's government," Frans Cronje, deputy head of South Africa's Institute of Race Relations said in a statement on 20 May.

According to Cronje, these failings have been reflected in high rates of corruption, poor border control, ineffective foreign policy, failure to maintain law and order as well as high unemployment and crime rates. Specifically, the inability of the government to curb violent crime "contributed to an environment which saw people resort to violence without fear of arrest or successful prosecution."

Many critics also see Mbeki's policy on Zimbabwe, which eschews any public criticism of President Robert Mugabe in favor of "quiet diplomacy" as a failing which helped create an exodus of Zimbabwean refugees fleeing the collapse of that country's economy and Mugabe's political repression. An estimated three million Zimbabweans are currently in South Africa, most of them in poor neighborhoods such as the Alexandria township where the xenophobic violence broke out.

Yet, the violence cannot but be seen as a reflection of South Africa's social ills, many of which date back to the apartheid era, according to Dianna Games, analyst and head of Johannesburg-based consultancy, Africa at Work. Though many South Africans were exiles across Africa during the apartheid era, the vast majority of black South Africans remained in the country, insular and cut off from the rest of the continent, she said.

"There has long been a lingering xenophobic tendency against foreigners, not just Africans, but including Chinese and Indians," Games told ISN Security Watch. "It is taking time for the country to really open up, particularly at the low income levels, and foreigners were seen as a threat to jobs."

In the view of Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem of Justice Africa, a London-based civil civil rights group, South Africa is institutionally tuned more toward the West, with a visa and immigration regime that discriminates against Africans in favor of westerners.

If the government fails to act decisively to deal with xenophobia against Africans, there is a danger that "South African businesses and other interests across Africa will soon become legitimate targets, not just for demonstrations but campaigns of boycotts and even targets for sabotage and revenge attacks across the continent," Abdul-Raheem said according to a statement on the group's website..

Mbeki's legacy marred

While there may be no doubt about the need to make urgent repairs to South Africa's relations with the rest of Africa, there are many analysts who feel Mbeki is too politically damaged to do the job effectively.

Now in the twilight of his final term in office, he appears to have lost the political center stage to his former deputy, Jacob Zuma, who defeated him last year to become the new leader of the ruling African National Congress and successor-in-waiting. Games believes a new leadership may work in South Africa's favor by giving "the country another chance to assert itself positively again."

It is a verdict which for Mbeki may seem cruelly ironic, having struggled hard during his presidency to leave a lasting continental legacy.

As a spearhead of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), Mbeki pushed for economic and political reforms that would make Africa attractive to foreign investment and help eradicate the continent's chronic problems while ensuring a leadership position for South Africa. The NEPAD document was not only adopted by the AU, but was accepted by the G-8 countries as a framework for cooperation with African governments.

For Mbeki's government, important symbolic victories were won for African rebirth with the AU's decision to locate the continental parliament in South Africa and the choice by the world's soccer governing body, FIFA, for the country to be the first African host of soccer's World Cup in 2010.

South Africa also hopes to take the continent's permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.

Whatever his achievements, they appear irredeemably dented by the negative impact of the xenophobic attacks have had not only in Africa but also in the eyes of the world.

Peter Kagwanja, writing in the 2 June edition of the Kenyan Nation newspaper, put it more bluntly: "The immediate victim of the orgy of xenophobia is the African migrant. But the long-term loser is President Thabo Mbeki, whose legacy of African Renaissance has suffered a serious blow."