A desire to eliminate competition from foreign-owned businesses was the key driver behind the xenophobic violence that erupted in KwaZulu-Natal last year.
This emerged from a report released in Durban at a press conference on Tuesday by the Special Reference Group on Migration and Community Integration in KwaZulu-Natal (SRG) that was tasked with investigating the xenophobic violence that erupted between March and May in 2015.
Judge Navi Pillay said: “The immediate cause of the violent attacks was the result of deliberate efforts to drive away competition by foreign national owned businesses”.
Pillay said poverty, a difficult economic climate, increasing socio- economic inequality and high levels of unemployment together with economic competition created “a highly combustible environment”.
She said the tensions were prevalent in the informal trading sector.
Pillay said that unfounded rumours and inflammatory statements did not help. She said that the causes of the xenophobic violence were similar to those in 2008, when violence against foreigners first errupted on a large scale.
Pillay said she did not believe these causes had been addressed.
“This crucially suggests that there is a strong possibility for recurrence.”
During the three months of violence in 2015 hundreds were injured and at least eight people across the country were reported to have been killed in the violence, which displaced thousands of foreign nationals as they fled their homes and businesses.
Professor Paulus Zulu, who headed up the KwaZulu-Natal Special Committee on Social Cohesion said at the same press conference that there was a requirement for more equitable economic development, a requirement for a “more transparent and equitable tender system”, as well the promotion of “peace education”.
– African News Agency (ANA)
