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S.Africa fails to stop attacks on foreign truckers: HRW
JOHANNESBURG, Aug 26, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Dozens of truck drivers in South
Africa have died in attacks against foreigners since March 2018, Human Rights
Watch said on Monday, calling for stronger protection of foreign workers.
The report was released after a recent spate of xenophobic violence
fuelled by economic decline and record unemployment in Africa’s second
largest economy.
Groups of South African truck drivers allegedly assaulted foreign drivers
with stones, knives, guns and petrol bombs, killing more than 200 and forcing
hundreds out of their jobs, said the rights group.
A South African truck owners’ association quoted by the HRW reported 75
such incidents since March this year, 15 of which were independently
confirmed by the watchdog.
They include the deadly stabbing of a Zimbabwean driver and a petrol bomb
attack on another Zimbabwean national in the coastal city of Durban, where a
spate of violence against foreigners displaced hundreds earlier this year.
HRW southern Africa director Dewa Mavhinga called on the government to
“bring perpetrators to justice”.
“The South African authorities are neither protecting foreign truck drivers
against violence nor conducting effective investigations into those credibly
implicated in attacks,” Mavhinga said.
Labour ministry spokesman Makhosonke Buthelezi told AFP that his department
was not aware of the report, but the government had appointed an inter-
ministerial committee to look into the issue and held several meetings with
employers and truck drivers in Durban.
“It is not true to say (the) government is not doing anything,” said
Buthelezi. “Whether it is enough, we can only judge later.” – Economic
migrants –
Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula said after an interministerial meeting
in June that the crisis was caused by an “oversupply of foreign drivers in
the industry”, many of whom are undocumented.
South Africa is a major destination for economic migrants from the
southern Africa region, with many moving from neighbouring Lesotho,
Mozambique and Zimbabwe in search for work.
The latest population census in 2011 shows that numbers spiked in the
previous decade, with nearly half of international migrants having moved to
South Africa between 2005 and 2010. An unknown number of the migrants are
undocumented.
Employers “prefer (foreign truck drivers) because they can work long hours
at a much cheaper cost, so they tend to exploit them,” Buthelezi said.
A South African truck drivers association has called for a nation-wide
strike on September 2, according to HRW.
Their announcement prompted the Zambian embassy in South Africa to warn
their truck drivers not to travel to South Africa on the strike date “until
security is guaranteed”.
It also advised Zambian drivers to park their trucks in “safe and secure
designated places in order to avoid loss of life and property.”
Immigrants bear much of the anger about chronic unemployment and limited
economic gains made by poor black people since white-minority rule ended in
1994.
Violence erupts sporadically, targeting foreign-owned shops and migrants
themselves.
Sixty-two people were killed in a wave of xenophobic violence in 2008, and
at least seven in a renewed outburst in 2015.
BSS/AFP/RY/20:21 hrs