By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has condemned the violent clashes between foreigners and South Africans, cautioning against xenophobic incidents and the danger they pose to stability in the country.
Ramaphosa made the remarks during his keynote address at the national commemoration of Human Rights Day in Koster in the North West on Monday.
“We say to employers: do not employ undocumented workers because when you do you are just going to create tension among the people,” he said.
Ramaphosa said those who set up organisation such as Operation Dudula were breaking the law.
Operation Dudula has been targeting foreign nationals operating small businesses, demanding that they leave the country.
“We can’t allow people to use vigilantism to deal with issues,” he said, adding that this was a highly sensitive matter that could turn into deadly xenophobic violence.
Ramaphosa said employers who knowingly hired undocumented foreign nationals were breaking the law and contributing to social tensions between South African citizens and foreign nationals.
“Our departments of Home Affairs and Employment and Labour continue to engage with employers to ensure compliance with the immigration and labour laws. As a country founded on tolerance, respect for diversity and non-discrimination, we must never allow ourselves to turn against people who come from beyond our borders.
“We must be a welcoming country, particularly refugees fleeing persecution elsewhere. However, those who want to live and work in our country must be documented and have the right to be or work here,” he said.
In his address, Ramaphosa also spoke about the effects of the war in Ukraine.
“We see a number of gains being reversed; it looks like we are going back. The gains that we see are going to be reversed by that war that is taking place there,” he said.
Ramaphosa said food and fuel prices were going up while Covid-19 had also taken the country back, with two million people losing their jobs.
“Instead of moving forward, we are now finding that we are getting into another trap,” he said.
Ramaphosa drew on this historic event, saying it took place in post-apartheid South Africa and was a reminder of the challenges of racism.
“It was a stark reminder to us all that racism did not die with the fall of apartheid. It showed us that there was much work still to be done to build the bridges of tolerance and understanding in our nation.”
Ramaphosa said the same racial intolerance is still experienced by many black South Africans today.
“We are reminded of this even today when we hear of incidents of racism and intolerance in schools, in workplaces, in communities, in our universities, on the roads of our country, in professional sectors, and in many other places where South Africans interface with one another.”
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Video Courtesy of Presidency.
Meanwhile the DA’s John Steenhuisen was visiting the rural community of Gemsbokspruit in Mpumalanga to “see for myself” the daily indignities that poverty subjects them to and to hear first-hand about the daily struggle of people to make ends meet.
He said the most pressing and evident human rights violation in South Africa today was crippling poverty.
On this Human Rights Day, if we are to realise the vision of human dignity for all that is enshrined in the Bill of Rights, we need to commit as a nation to ending poverty which continues to deny more than 60% of South Africans their human rights and basic freedoms.
“This is the fight of our generation, and the fight that the DA will be taking up under my leadership,” he said.
Steenhuisen appealed to all South Africans to get behind the DA’s vision of ending poverty in our lifetime, saying the first step was getting rid of South Africa’s Poverty Cabinet.
ActionSA’s leader Herman Mashaba said the ANC-led government had “betrayed” citizens.
“I am not a betting man, but I know as fact that 28 years into democracy, the people of Sharpeville, in the Vaal Triangle towns of Vereeniging, Vanderbijlpark and Sasolburg, are demonstrably worse off. I know as fact, though I am not proud to admit it, that the people of Giyani, Makhanda and Ka-Nyamazane are worse off.
“Actioners, South Africans, and people of the world, it gives me no joy to note that this pattern is replicated in many parts of our country,” Mashaba said.
He added that the ANC and other parties who were meant to conduct oversight, had betrayed the hopes of citizens.
“They have betrayed our dreams. They have betrayed our aspirations. They have betrayed our faith. They have betrayed our dignity and, most painfully, they have betrayed the very thing we were promised in 1994: a non-racial, unified, inclusive nation that would allow each South African, whether citizen or resident, the opportunities to live safely, benefit economically and thrive in all aspects of human development,” said Mashaba.
The FF Plus called on every person in the country to reflect on mutual respect and to reach out to one another.