Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa has dismissed reports of xenophobic
attacks in some parts of the country saying it was just a “squall of bad omen”
becoming louder.
Mthethwa said: “Xenophobia is not going to happen. I call on people
and the media not to be part of peddling this hysteria of a possible outbreak.
There is no such systematic thing as xenophobia in the country.”
He said these were “dangerous rumours” and risked being
self-fulfilling.
Police commissioner General Bheki Cele said that a week before the
World Cup tournament, about 11 buses carrying Zimbabwean nationals had entered
the country, but media did not report that.
Cele said: “No one reported on that but now they are focusing on
those leaving.”
There had been incidents linked to xenophobic attacks in the
Western Cape on Sunday night where a number of foreign-owned spaza shops and
container shops were burned and looted.
Some vandalism and attempted looting continued during the day on
Monday in Khayelitsha, where police helped Somali shop owners to remove their
goods.
Mthethwa, who visited the area on Monday, emphasised that they were
not dismissing reports of xenophobic attacks but that investigations conducted
revealed that xenophobia was not the case, but rather “criminality disguised as
xenophobia”.
“We don’t take people’s lives for granted,” Mthethwa said.
Cele said a number of meetings had taken place in communities where
incidents were reported and that feedback received from community members was
that they had no intention of driving out foreign nationals.
He singled out “criminal elements”, aged 13 to 25, who terrorised
people, adding that a dozen of them had been arrested.
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