Fredson Guilengue works for the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung (RLS) regional office in Johannesburg. He has published extensively on Mozambique’s politics. His work also extends to areas such as social movements, land, agrarian issues and climate change. He is currently enrolled for his PhD at the University of the Witwatersrand.
If President Cyril Ramaphosa’s view condemning xenophobia represents the official positions of the South African state and the ANC, who was ANC spokesperson Pule Mabe speaking for when he effectively endorsed Operation Dudula?
The issue of xenophobic attacks against foreign nationals has once again reached disturbing levels in South Africa. Although latent for a few years now, Mbhodazwe Nyathi. a Zimbabwean gardener, was recently accused of being a criminal and killed by a mob just metres from his house following days of tension in Diepsloot.
The motivation of the vigilantes who killed Nyathi was simply the fact that Nyathi could not prove to them that he was either a South African national or that he was staying in South Africa legally (they were going to be judge and jury over what legality meant in this case).
The barbaric killing of Mbhodazwe Nyathi is a strong symptom of a much bigger catastrophe…
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