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Mandela's
vision
of Black
unity
fades as
South
Africa
rejects
migrants
By
TIM
COCKS
reuters.com
Munera
Mokgoko
was just
three
when
apartheid
fell.
She can
barely
remember,
much
less
fathom,
the
swell of
hope
that
accompanied
Black
liberation
three
decades
ago,
shaped
by
Nelson
Mandela’s
vision
of
social
equality
and
pan-African
solidarity.
“South
Africa
doesn’t
have any
ubuntu,”
the
33-year-old
said,
using a
Zulu
word
meaning
humanity,
ahead of
an
election
in which
the
ruling
African
National
Congress
(ANC) is
pledging
to crack
down on
undocumented
migrants
from the
rest of
the
continent.
“It’s
like we
don’t
know how
to
welcome
people.”
Mokgoko’s
Tanzanian
husband
is among
many
African
migrants
who have
flocked
here
since
the end
of white
minority
rule and
met with
the
colder
side of
the
“Rainbow
Nation”,
a name
used by
Mandela
and
others
in the
1990s to
describe
South
Africa’s
aspirations
to be a
beacon
of
multicultural
harmony.
Public
resentment
at
immigration
has
become a
hot
issue in
the
run-up
to the
May 29
vote.
It’s the
first
national
election
in which
most
people
in South
Africa –
which
has a
median
age of
about 28
– have
no
memory
of
decades
of
apartheid,
the
fight
for
freedom
or the
ANC
liberation
movement’s
rise to
power in
1994.
Munera
Mokgoko
and her
foreign-born
husband
are
among
the
survivors
of last
year's
Usindiso
fire,
which
killed
77
people,
mostly
migrants.
She is
seen
playing
with
daughter
Myunma
outside
their
tin
shack at
a
government
shelter
for
survivors
in
Johannesburg.
REUTERS/Anait
Miridzhanian
Idi
Rajebo,
Mokgoko’s
34-year-old
husband,
and
thousands
of other
hopefuls
fleeing
rural
penury
in much
poorer
nations
like
Tanzania
and
Malawi
have
packed
themselves
into
decrepit
minibuses,
footslogged
through
bush and
bribed
border
guards
to reach
Johannesburg,
the
“City of
Gold”.
He
and
dozens
of
others
ended up
crammed
into a
derelict
apartment
tower
that was
being
taken
over –
or
“hijacked”
– by
criminals,
where
toilets
overflowed
and drug
addicts
drooped
over
stairwells.
“It
wasn’t
nice,”
said
Isaac
Simon,
39, a
Tanzanian
friend
of
Rajebo’s
who ran
a
kitchen
on the
ground
floor.
“We
all had
the same
idea:
make
some
money
and get
out.”
Dozens
didn’t
get the
chance.
Nine
months
ago, the
Usindiso
apartment
block
burst
into
flames,
killing
77
people –
mostly
migrants
– and
leaving
hundreds
homeless.
A boy
walks
past a
mural of
Nelson
Mandela
adorning
the
liberation
leader's
former
home in
Johannesburg's
Alexandra
township
in June
2013,
six
months
before
his
death.
Mandela
became a
global
symbol
of
triumph
over
adversity
and
bigotry
when he
became
South
Africa's
first
black
president
in 1994
after
the
defeat
of
apartheid.
REUTERS/Mujahid
Safodien
Reuters
is the
first
news
outlet
to
comprehensively
piece
together
the
stories
of many
of the
survivors,
before
and
after
the
Usindiso
tragedy.
This
article
is based
on
interviews
with
about 50
people,
including
19
migrant
victims,
government
officials
and
lawyers
representing
survivors
in a
public
inquiry
into the
causes
of the
blaze,
plus
hundreds
of pages
of
documents
submitted
as
evidence
to the
probe,
much of
it not
publicly
available.
The
accounts
turn a
rare
spotlight
on the
dire
conditions
endured
by many
Africans
who
arrive
here
searching
for of a
better
life in
the
continent’s
most
advanced
economy,
and the
hostility
they say
they’ve
encountered
from
South
African
authorities
as well
as bands
of
vigilantes
who
blame
foreigners
for
taking
jobs and
services
away
from
local
people.
The
public
inquiry
concluded
this
month
that the
fire was
caused
by a
South
African
man who
was high
on
crystal
meth
when he
strangled
another
local to
death
and set
the body
alight
with
petrol
to
conceal
the
evidence
of the
murder.
Survivors
and
locals
walk
past the
gutted
block
after
the
blaze,
which
left
hundreds
homeless.
REUTERS/Shiraaz
Mohamed
The
probe
also
blamed
neglect
by local
authorities
for
allowing
the
building
to
become a
hazardous
zone,
rife
with
guns,
murder,
drugs
and
combustible
trash,
findings
that led
to the
provincial
premier
pledging
to
swiftly
implement
the
report’s
recommendations.
For
those
who
survived
the
blaze,
the
ordeal
continues.
Seven of
the 19
migrants
interviewed
are
sleeping
on
sidewalks
or in
makeshift
tents.
Most of
the rest
said
they
were
living
in even
more
overcrowded
and
dirty
accommodation
than the
gutted
block
they
escaped,
while
four
have
been
deported
for not
having
valid
immigration
papers.
In
total,
25
survivors
of the
fire
have
been
deported,
according
to
lawyers
representing
them at
the
public
inquiry
into the
fire and
as legal
counsel
during
their
incarceration.
Dazed
and
devastated
women
sob on
the
street
outside
the
building
in the
hours
following
the
fire.
REUTERS/Shiraaz
Mohamed
This
month’s
election
could
mark the
end of
an era
for
post-liberation
South
Africa,
with the
long-dominant
ANC
expected
to lose
its
parliamentary
majority
for the
first
time,
abandoned
by
voters
incensed
at a
litany
of
national
woes
including
a dearth
of
decent
housing,
frequent
power
cuts,
water
shortages,
poor
schools,
rampant
joblessness
and high
crime.
Most
major
parties
have put
forward
plans to
crack
down
harder
on
illegal
migrants
as they
vie for
votes in
a tight
race.
Last
month,
the
government
published
proposals
in its
official
gazette
to scale
back its
commitments
to, or
withdraw
from,
the
United
Nations
refugees
convention
and
related
treaties,
to
“deter
economic
migrants
who come
to South
Africa
disguising
as
asylum
seekers”,
a move
it said
would
free its
hand in
promptly
rejecting
asylum
claims
it
deemed
bogus.
Unemployed
people
line a
street
in Cape
Town
waiting
for
casual
employment,
overlooked
by
campaign
posters
for the
South
African
election,
which
will be
held on
May 29.
REUTERS/Nic
Bothma
The
white
paper
provoked
an
outcry
from
local
human
rights
groups
and
three
U.N.
agencies
- the
UNHCR
refugee
body,
IOM
migration
organisation
and
UNICEF
children’s
fund -
said the
withdrawal
would
set a
negative
precedent
and
could
lead to
children
born in
South
Africa
becoming
stateless.
The
proposals
also
provide
a
jarring
counterpoint
to the
message
conveyed
by
former
ANC
leader
Mandela,
who
declared
Africans
were
“one
people
with a
common
destiny”
after
becoming
the
country’s
first
democratically
elected
president.
“When
the
history
of our
struggle
is
written,
it will
tell a
glorious
tale of
African
solidarity,”
Mandela
told
fellow
leaders
in June
1994.
“Africa
shed her
blood
... so
that all
her
children
could be
free.
She gave
of her
limited
wealth
and
resources
so that
all of
Africa
should
be
liberated.”
The
ANC
signed
up to
the
refugee
treaties
unconditionally
in 1995
and
1996. It
wasn’t
among
the many
signatories
that
secured
opt-outs
from
certain
requirements,
such as
giving
refugees
the same
welfare
benefits
as
citizens.
In a
1997
speech
to mark
Africa
Refugee
Day,
Mandela
said the
answer
to
managing
large
refugee
flows,
often
driven
by
conflict,
was to
emphasise
people’s
political
and
civil
rights
and for
“all of
us on
the
African
continent
to
unite”.
Home
Affairs
Minister
Aaron
Motsoaledi,
who put
forward
the
white
paper,
told
Reuters
in an
interview
that
migrants
as a
whole
were
proving
a heavy
burden
on South
Africa’s
resources,
citing
one
hospital,
in the
northeastern
town of
Musina,
where he
said
Zimbabweans
made up
of 70%
of
maternity
ward
patients.
Reuters
couldn’t
independently
verify
those
maternity
ward
figures.
Calls to
the
Musina
hospital
went
unanswered.
Motsoaledi
also
said
undocumented
migrants
were
allowing
employers
to
undercut
the
minimum
wage,
and
dismissed
any
suggestion
of
xenophobia.
“Every
country
has got
the
right to
safeguard
its
interests,”
he said.
“Pan-Africanism
does not
mean
entering
each
other’s
country
illegally.”
The
government
stance
is
rejected
by Andy
Chinnah,
a human
rights
activist
who has
spent
the last
nine
months
helping
victims
of the
fire by
providing
them
with
meals
and
helping
organise
their
legal
representation
for the
public
inquiry,
which
examined
the
causes
of the
blaze
and who
should
be held
responsible
for the
tragedy.
Chinnah
said the
treatment
of
African
migrants
reminded
him of
the
apartheid
system,
but now
it was
Black
people
from
other
countries
who were
“outsiders.”
Political
moves to
curb
migrant
rights
amount
to a
betrayal
of
Mandela’s
legacy,
he said.
“He
wanted
one
Africa.
All the
other
presidents
from the
other
African
countries
supported
him and
the
liberation
movement
to get
the
freedom
that we
enjoy
today,”
Chinnah
said.
“We
didn’t
fight
for just
the
freedom
of us in
South
Africa.
We
fought
for a
free
Africa.
We
fought
against
colonialism.”
Enter
operation
‘Force
out’
The
number
of
immigrants
living
legally
in South
Africa
has
almost
trebled
to 2.4
million
in 2022
– more
than 80%
of them
from
sub-Saharan
Africa –
from
835,000
in 1996,
according
to the
national
statistics
office.
It said
migrants
now made
up about
4% of
the
population,
with
Zimbabwe,
Mozambique,
Lesotho
and
Malawi
the
leading
countries
of
origin.
In the
United
States,
another
country
where
immigration
is a top
issue
this
election
year,
foreign-born
people
account
for
almost
14% of
the
populace,
census
data
shows.
The
official
South
African
figures
don’t
include
undocumented
migrants,
for
which
the
government
white
paper
says
there
are no
reliable
figures.
It says
immigration
authorities
deport
15,000
to
20,000
undocumented
migrants
a year,
and that
the
number
is
rising.
Migrants
from
sub-Saharan
Africa,
where
much of
the
population
struggles
to eke
out even
a meagre
living
from
farming,
are
often
willing
to take
great
risks to
reach
South
Africa’s
more
industrialised
economy.
They
pursue
work as
child
carers,
waiters,
security
guards,
artisanal
miners
and
shopkeepers,
to name
a few
occupations.
Of
the 19
migrant
survivors
interviewed
by
Reuters,
nine
including
Rajebo
said
they
were on
valid
visas
but had
lost the
documents
along
with
most of
their
belongings
in the
fire.
The
other 10
said
they
didn’t
have
valid
immigration
papers.
Reuters
couldn’t
independently
verify
their
accounts.
There is
widespread
public
frustration
with
undocumented
migrants
in South
Africa,
particularly
among
young
people,
according
to a
survey
of 1,000
18-to-24-year-olds
published
this
month by
the
Ichikowitz
Family
Foundation,
a
Johannesburg-based
rights
and
conservation
advocacy
group.
About
88% of
respondents
said
they
believed
illegal
migrants
were
taking
jobs and
resources
away
from
South
Africans,
86% said
they
were
driving
up
crime,
and 85%
thought
they
should
be
forcibly
removed.
Few
movements
harness
this
bubbling
anger
more
thoroughly
than
Operation
Dudula –
meaning
“force
out” in
Zulu – a
group
founded
in 2021
with a
stated
mission
to rid
South
Africa
of
illegal
migrants,
whom
they
blame
for many
social
and
economic
ills.
The
loose-knit
street
movement
has
thousands
of
followers
across
the
country.
It has
become
well
known
for
staging
demonstrations
against
illegal
migrant
workers,
making
threats
against
migrants
and
sometimes
carrying
out
attacks
on
foreign-owned
businesses.
Operation
Dudula
registered
as a
political
party
late
last
year,
but last
month
the
electoral
commission
excluded
it from
the
election
for
missing
the
deadline
for
submitting
its list
of
candidates.
About
half of
the
migrant
survivors
of the
Aug. 31
Johannesburg
fire
interviewed
by
Reuters
said
they had
been
threatened
and
intimidated
by
members
of
Operation
Dudula,
both
before
and
after
the
disaster.
Two
months
before
the
blaze,
members
of
Dudula
swept
through
the
building,
clad in
their
uniform
of white
T-shirts
and
combat
trousers,
demanding
to see
identification
from
foreign
nationals,
searching
rooms
for
drugs
and
hitting
some
residents
with
whips,
according
to four
witnesses
interviewed.
Their
accounts
are
corroborated
by five
separate
affidavits
submitted
to the
public
inquiry
and seen
by
Reuters.
On
the day
after
the
fire, as
dozens
of
shell-shocked
and
homeless
survivors
sat
outside
the
building,
about 30
members
of
Dudula
arrived
armed
with
whips,
marched
up and
began
taunting
them,
according
to five
witnesses
and five
affidavits.
“They
were
shouting,
they
were
singing,
they
were
having
joyful
laughter,”
said
Omari
Hanya,
44, a
Tanzanian
survivor
who was
there.
“’These
foreigners
must go
back
home or
die’,
they
were
saying
in
Zulu.”
Dudula’s
Deputy
Secretary
General
Isaac
Lesole
rejected
the
allegations
that the
group
harassed
or
abused
migrants
in the
block.
He said
the
group’s
code of
conduct,
which
Reuters
has
viewed,
allowed
members
only to
ask if
someone
has
legitimate
visa
papers,
not to
demand
to see
them. He
disputed
the
charge
of
vigilantism,
saying
their
role was
always
to alert
legitimate
authorities.
“Yes, in
the
past,
we’ve
been in
trouble
for
acting
on our
own,”
said
Lesole.
He
acknowledged
that
Dudula
members
had
threatened
migrants
and
attacked
their
businesses
in the
past,
but
insisted
the
group
now
operates
as
whistleblowers
within
the law.
“Yes,
there
were
members
of
Operation
Dudula
outside
the
Usindiso
building
following
the
fire,
but it
was not
celebratory,”
he
added.
The aim
of the
march
was to
highlight
the
problem
of
undocumented
migrants
and show
Dudula
had been
vindicated
in their
belief
that
foreign
nationals
had
taken
over too
many
buildings
like
this in
the town
centre,
he said.
Asked
how
authorities
viewed
Dudula,
Home
Affairs
Minister
Motsoaledi
said
that
South
Africa
didn’t
condone
the
group’s
anti-migrant
activities.
“You
don’t
take the
law into
your own
hands,”
he
added.
“You
don’t
follow
vigilantism
because
the
country
will go
into
chaos.”
The
suspect
in the
fatal
blaze,
who is
in
detention
and has
been
charged
with 76
counts
of
murder
and 86
counts
of
attempted
murder,
hasn’t
yet
entered
a plea.
Residents
negotiate
the
stairwell
of
another
overcrowded
apartment
block in
Johannesburg
city
centre
where
some
survivors
of the
Usindiso
blaze
moved
after
the
disaster.
REUTERS/Siphiwe
Sibeko
In
March,
the
suspect’s
attorney
publicly
stated
that he
intended
to plead
not
guilty.
Since
then,
the
suspect
fired
his
attorney
for
failing
to show
up at a
court
hearing
to
represent
him and
a new
lawyer
hasn’t
been
named,
according
to an
official
close to
the case
who
requested
anonymity
to
discuss
the
matter.
Beaten
for
being
$11
short
Mokgoko,
a South
African
from
Northwest
Province,
met
Rajebo
in 2007
in
Randfontein,
a gold
mining
town
west of
Johannesburg,
where he
was
running
a
grocery
shop.
Rajebo
had
arrived
a year
earlier
by bus
from the
Tanzanian
port
city of
Tanga.
In
2019,
they and
their
three
children
moved
into the
fourth
floor of
the
doomed
block.
“We
had
financial
problems;
it was
cheap,”
Mokgoko
told
Reuters
outside
the tin
shack
where
she now
resides.
Her
one-year-old
daughter,
Mymuna,
giggled
as she
muddied
her pink
booties
in the
dirt.
The
Usindiso
building
was
formerly
a
shelter
for
women
who were
victims
of
domestic
violence
which
closed
in 2017
due to
lack of
funding.
When
Mokgoko
and
Rajebo
arrived,
it was
being
hijacked
by
criminal
gangs
charging
“rent”
to
occupants
and
newcomers.
It soon
became
crammed
with
desperate
new
arrivals,
with the
criminals
and
residents
dividing
its
space by
erecting
tin
shacks
in
bathrooms
and on
staircases,
eight
fire
survivors
told
Reuters.
Isaac
Simon, a
Tanzanian
survivor
of the
Usindiso
fire,
speaks
to
Reuters
at the
Hofland
Park
temporary
shelter
in
Johannesburg.
He was
out
buying
cigarettes
when 32
fellow
migrant
survivors
were
arrested
by
authorities
in a
raid on
the
shelter
in
November.
Most of
them
were
deported.
REUTERS/James
Oatway
More
than 500
people
were
living
in the
hijacked
building
at the
time of
the
fire,
about
half of
them
migrants,
according
to law
firm
Norton
Rose
Fulbright,
which
represented
340
survivors
in the
inquiry.
There
are no
official
estimates.
The
gangs
could be
brutal
if you
didn’t
pay on
time,
said
Simon, a
Tanzanian
friend
of
Rajebo’s
who ran
a
kitchen
on the
ground
floor.
“They
came in
groups
of five
or six,
with
guns,
usually
a
revolver,”
he
added.
“I saw
them
beat
someone
with a
bottle
for
being
200 rand
($11)
short.”
The
criminals
openly
preferred
to rent
to
migrants,
eight
foreign
residents
told
Reuters,
because
many
were too
scared
to
complain
to
police,
since
some
were
undocumented
and
others
had
already
been
extorted
by
officers.
Seven
foreign
fire
survivors,
including
Hanya,
told
Reuters
that men
in
police
uniforms
with
badges
often
raided
their
informal
market
stalls
in and
outside
the
building,
asking
to see
their
visa
papers.
If no
valid
document
was
produced,
or
sometimes
even if
one was,
they
said,
the men
often
demanded
sums of
between
500 and
2,000
rand to
avoid
jail.
Members
of
anti-migrant
group
Operation
Dudula
march on
the
offices
of the
Diakonia
Council
of
Churches
in the
South
African
city of
Durban
in July
2022.
They
were
demanding
that the
council,
which
advocates
for
social
justice,
cease
assisting
undocumented
African
immigrants.
REUTERS/Rogan
Ward
Four
of those
survivors
described
being
driven
off in a
van to a
quiet
street
to carry
out the
transaction.
Two said
they had
been
locked
up in
police
cells
until
friends
or
relatives
came
with
money to
get them
out.
Malawian
street
grocer
Kenneth
Jiro,
32,
survived
the fire
but lost
his
26-year-old
brother
Manis.
He
recalled
having
his
stall
raided
every
few
weeks by
men in
police
uniforms
demanding
700 to
1,000
rand
each
time.
Xolani
Fihla, a
spokesman
for the
Johannesburg
police
(JMPD),
said the
department
was not
aware of
any such
misconduct
by
officers
in its
ranks,
but that
“it
would be
considered
unlawful
if it is
happening,
and if
any
evidence
is
brought
to the
JMPD
then
disciplinary
action
must be
taken”.
‘Give
the baby
back’
The
night
after
the
fire,
Rajebo
was
among 32
migrant
survivors
relocated
by
Johannesburg
authorities
to a
pavilion
in
Hofland
Park, a
recreation
centre
in a
leafy
but
rundown
suburb
just
outside
the city
centre,
six
survivors
said.
Hanya, a
Usindiso
survivor
who runs
a stall
selling
candy
and
cigarettes,
said the
shelter
was
overcrowded.
There
was “no
privacy,
no door
on the
toilet,
barely
anywhere
to sleep
– just a
few
mattresses,”
he said.
“People
just
sitting
around
waiting
for
food.”
Soon
after
arriving,
he
elected
to sleep
on the
street
instead.
That
proved a
wise
decision.
On Nov.
15,
authorities
raided
the
centre,
forcing
the 32
foreign
migrants
into
security
vehicles.
The raid
was
witnessed
by a
Reuters
reporter
and
cameraman.
A
shopkeeper
looks
out of
his door
as a
police
officer
walks
past in
March
2022, at
a time
of high
tensions
and
clashes
between
anti-immigrant
protesters
and
foreign
store
owners
in
Johannesburg's
Alexandra
township.
REUTERS/Siphiwe
Sibeko
Mokgoko
remembers
seeing
Rajebo
being
hauled
towards
a group
of
police
trucks
and
immigration
vans
outside.
“He was
with the
baby.
They
were
pulling
him,
saying,
‘You’d
better
give the
baby
back to
the
mother
because
you’re
not
going
with
them’.”
Rajebo
handed
the
infant
to
Mokgoko,
who
watched
her
husband
disappear
into one
of the
vans.
Acting
Gauteng
Home
Affairs
Chief
Albert
Matsaung
told
Reuters
on the
scene
that the
officials
were
taking
away the
undocumented
foreigners
to be
transported
back to
their
home
countries.
The
32
migrants
were
taken to
a police
station,
arrested,
fingerprinted
and
transferred
to
Lindela
immigrants
prison,
40km
outside
the city
centre,
according
to
Rajebo
and
Rashidi
Suleiman
Abdallah,
32,
another
Tanzanian
who was
detained.
Their
accounts
were
corroborated
by law
firm
Norton
Rose
Fulbright
and
Lawyers
for
Human
Rights,
their
legal
teams,
in an
ultimately
unsuccessful
court
case to
fight
their
deportation.
On
Apr. 10,
they
were all
deported,
apart
from
seven
who had
escaped
in a
jail
break in
March,
according
to
Rajebo,
Abdallah
and
lawyers
representing
the 32
detainees.
Most of
the
deportees
were
Tanzanian,
with
four
Malawians.
The
Tanzanians
landed
in Dar
es
Salaam.
They
were
detained
until
families
could
pay a
fine to
the
Tanzanian
authorities
of
57,000
shillings
($22),
levied
against
nationals
returning
after
being
deported.
Rajebo
got out
after a
week,
when his
relatives
cobbled
the
money
together.
The
Tanzanian
immigration
department
didn’t
respond
to
requests
for
comment
on the
return
of the
deportees.
Rajebo
told
Reuters
by phone
on Apr.
22 that
if he
wants to
see his
wife and
children
again,
he has
no
choice
but to
return.
Bringing
them to
Tanzania
is not
viable
because
of the
lack of
economic
opportunities,
he said,
even
though
he
thinks
they
would be
far more
welcome
than he
was in
his
wife’s
homeland.
“I’m
gonna
come
back,”
Rajebo
said. “I
want a
normal
family.
I don’t
want to
be
separated
from
them.”
Even
with the
hostility
he
encountered
in South
Africa,
he
added,
it is
still
preferable
to the
grinding
poverty
of home.
South
Africa’s
annual
economic
output
per
person
is
$5,970,
versus
$1,220
in
Tanzania,
according
to IMF
data.
“You
go
there,
you can
make
some
money,”
Rajebo
said,
chuckling
softly.
“That’s
why we
keep
going.”
South
Africa
Shuts
the Door
By
Tim
Cocks
Photo
editing:
James
Oatway
Video:
Shafiek
Tassiem
Art
direction:
Catherine
Tai
Edited
by
Pravin C
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