By Dadier Malango Abdalah

June 30, 2009

Too hot in the equatorial region,

an African Child cries as lilies in the forest whistle for want.

Too cold in the Southern hemisphere, penguins begin the exodus,

but watch this way: “no feathers to fly!”

Too dreadful as crime sail, migrants cry:

“too broke to go, too afraid to stay!”

Smashed by a rolling rock, tears on their faces; but watch this way:

“The world is struck by recession and economic downturn!”

Surely, like the other poet in his scripts watches: “Big guys do cry”.

Surely, watch this way: “too gloomy to advance, but the task is to remain awake”.

By Dadier Malango Abdalah,

June 21, 2009

20th June each year is the World Refugee Day; a commemoration of those in exile who sought and are still seeking for asylum overseas or within the neighbouring countries due to fear, conflict and violence in their home countries.

The message this year by the UNHCR Commissioner to Refugees, Antonio Guterres to mark World Refugee Day is REAL PEOPLE, REAL NEEDS.

However, more than 34 million refugees are cared for by the UNHCR and its co-agencies around the globe. This year with the world economic crisis threatening to slash aid budgets and amid enormous global uncertainty, the world needs to ensure that refugees are not forgotten. They are real individuals with real needs, just like others.  But despite the best efforts of UNHCR and many others, these basic needs are far from being met!

In Malawi, the commemoration of the World Refugee Day held in Dzaleka Refugee Camp, Dowa District has accorded refugees the opportunity to  celebrate their lives and to express their appreciation to:

1. The government of Malawi for granting them asylum; assisting them health and security services;

2. Jesuit Refugee Services for providing primary, secondary and vocational education;

3. Malawi Red Cross Society for providing Social and Community services;

4. World Food Programme for supplying food for their sustenance;

5. UNHCR for Providing funds for the various services.

Refugee are real people who are in real needs.

By Caryn Dolley

Gugulethu traders have delivered warning letters to Somali shopkeepers telling them they have seven days to leave the area.
Identical acts of intimidation preceded last year’s outbreak of xenophobic violence, and foreign traders living and working in informal settlements fear they may again be violently ejected from their homes.
An urgent meeting between Gugulethu police and foreign and local business owners has been set up for Monday to try to quell the tensions and avert another outbreak of violence.
A study released a few days ago by the City of Cape Town found there were tensions between local and foreign spaza shop traders in Khayelitsha because foreigners were professionally “more efficient” and that this upset local traders, who felt business was being snatched from them.
The tensions in Khayelitsha in October were also sparked by warning letters sent by local traders to foreigners.
The recent letters come as the City of Cape Town is offering programmes to develop local and foreign traders’ skills.
On Sunday, Mncedisi Twalo, spokesperson for the Anti-Eviction Campaign, which has joined forces with local and foreign traders to try to ease tensions between the two groups, said “business rivalry” was again causing problems.
He said despite a number of meetings aimed at getting locals and foreigners in Gugulethu to work together, Somali traders in the area had received letters on Saturday from local business owners “telling them they have seven days to vacate the area”.
Twalo said a group of Somalis who felt threatened had gone immediately to the Gugulethu police station.
Elliot Sinyangana, the station’s spokesperson, said officers had received “a surprise visit” from the Somalis.
“The letter (they showed) us was very informal,” he said.
“In it locals said they wanted the Somalis out of the area in seven days. There was no name on it, there was no letter head and it didn’t say who it was from.
“It’s the same old story. According to (the locals) the Somalis are taking over business in the area.”
Sinyangana did not know how many warning letters had been distributed. Although the Somalis had not lodged a formal complaint, he said police were investigating.

He said residents had seen someone in a white bakkie dropping off the letters and some of the Somali shopkeepers had managed to take down its registration number.
“We traced the (number plate) to a bakkie, but this was outside a business nothing like that run by the Somali or local traders.”
Sinyangana said after investigations it appeared a duplicate number plate had been used on the bakkie that delivered the letters.
Police had therefore not yet been able to trace the distributor, but Sinyangana said officers had spoken to local traders and warned them that if they distributed such letters it would be viewed as intimidation and they would face legal action.
He said an urgent meeting between police, local and foreign traders had been set up for today.
“We want to kill this problem and see that everyone is bound by a decision by the end of the meeting,” he said.
The Somali Association of South Africa’s deputy chairman, Abdi Adan, said he had heard about the letters.
“We got some papers telling us to leave our shacks in seven days. (The shopkeepers) do feel threatened. This is not the first time this is happening. We’ve had similar kinds of intimidation. It’s hectic.
“The main problem coming from the local business owners is jealousy.”
A recently released study, commissioned by the city in October and carried out by Knowledge Link Services, focused on the tensions that surged between local and foreign spaza shop traders in Khayelitsha last year.
The city’s executive director for economic, social development and tourism, Mansoor Mohamed, said it was found that “the root cause of trader tension was mainly the lack of entrepreneurial ability among local shopowners and not necessarily xenophobia”.
Mohamed said the city was running a number of programmes “to improve the skills of emerging entrepreneurs”.
He said that, in three years, the city had funded 194 local students to attend a six-month entrepreneurship development programme run by the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business.
The city would invite local and foreign traders to participate in the programme, Mohamed said.
He was not available on Sunday to provide further details about the programme, such as how many traders it could accommodate.
Twalo said he had not yet heard about the programme, but he believed local traders would favour it.
But Adan said it seemed like “just another plan” that in a few months would be forgotten.
Xenophobic violence hit the city in May last year and about 20 000 foreigners fled informal settlements. In the months leading up to the violence, warning letters telling foreigners to leave were distributed in the informal settlements.

By BRONWYNNE JOOSTE

Department of Home Affairs says preventing violent incidents outside the Nyanga Refugee Centre is not its responsibility.

This morning Jeff Baya, from the Democratic Republic of Congo, was stabbed outside the centre. Baya was taken to hospital about 40 minutes after being stabbed in the chest.

Police spokeswoman Captain Mari Louw said Baya was attacked when he left the centre. “The information we have is that the man was robbed and then stabbed. He was taken to hospital by the ambulance services.”

No arrests have been made.

Businesses in Airport Industria were due to approach the Cape High Court today to seek the centre’s closure.

They said it was having a negative impact on business operations, adding that their employees were also being placed at risk.

Louw said police received frequent calls to the centre, which was one of the areas with the most patrols.

The situation was tense at the centre this morning and there were several scuffles between foreign nationals as they jostled for a place in the lengthy queue.

Several accused Home Affairs officials of bribery and said they were often assaulted by guards. Refugees said they felt their lives were at risk each time they visited the centre.

Gino Fatala, from the DRC, said he had been stabbed near the centre last December. He had a large stab wound on his left arm.

“We are dying for papers. You see the people coming to make trouble here, they have knives and screwdrivers, they will steal anything they can while you stand and wait here.”

Violence flared this morning when several refugees started pushing each other around. Guards wielding batons intervened. Some refugees told the Cape Argus news team to leave, while one tried to grab the photographer’s camera.

Home Affairs spokeswoman Cleo Mosana said it was not the department’s responsibility to police situations outside the centre.

“We have adequate security measures in place to deal with our own environment. We can’t be held responsible for fights outside the centre; that is what the police must monitor.

“The businesses have said they do not want to be our neighbour. But there has not been an increase in violent activity since we arrived. What happens will depend on the court.”

Published on the web by Cape Argus on June 8, 2009.
________________________________________
© Cape Argus 2009. All rights reserved.

y Hegy Kalenga Nyandinda, Independent Writer

June 1, 2009

Sunday May, 31 was a nightmare for Dadier Malango Abdalah, a freelance writer, human rights activist and the Director of the Displaced Refugee Network.

On his way back home two vehicles followed him on Bhunga Avenue in Langa and hijacked him and later taken to unknown whereabouts where he was threatened to be killed if he continues the writing, exposing the locals to public.

“I don’t know the place they took me but it wasn’t a far drive, I guess”; Malango explained.

“They asked me what are you busy writing now? I responded a magazine and a couple of personal researches. And they then told me, ‘we are not going to see it published here or else you will die’; discard all your work”, he narrated.

Besides that, one of them who was very harsh with me told me, “I urge you to leave the RSA or else be killed. We are not interested in your fancy or executive car or anything you have got, but leave peacefully…” Malango said.

During this incident, his car was hit by the enemy’s vehicle on left side, damaging the whole door.

When he continued recalling the incident, he said, “I was threatened at a gun-point, slapped and beaten before they asked me to release my vehicle remote key”.

Malango is a published writer of three books including “Bloody Migration to South Africa”, The Road towards crossing the morass of xenophobia! He is also the Senior Editor of the DRN Magazine, a newly launched out foreigners’ magazine in Western Cape. He writes to Newspapers and Humanitarian Organisations around the globe.

Following up the outbreak of last year xenophobic violence, Malango responded much more through writing than any other foreign independent writer in the Western Cape. His writings are quoted on the Webs and Magazines and on reports across the world.

He is now writing DRN Magazine, 2^nd Edition, recording all post-xenophobic violence and crimes, government and Civil Society efforts and Social Justice Coalition Movement.

Together with Ephraim Zuva, he’s writing a Screen Play, entitled “House on Fire”.

It’s rumoured that this might be a threat from his local ex. girlfriend since he owns a three bed-room house, two vehicles in Crescent-Umga and he’s successful in small business, but nothing supports the rumour!

Finally, from Malango’s own words, “There is nothing like incoherent coincidence for human beings to meet and live together. It has been fore destined from cradle of humanity that we are all citizens of the World”.

http://www.thetimes.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1000013

By Luleka Damane

Despite the severe winter weather expected to hit the Mother City at the weekend, the City of Cape Town has dismantled shacks that were “illegally erected” at the Blue Waters refugees camp site, situated near Strandfontein.
City spokesperson Pieter Cronje said the refugees had been warned that if they did not dismantle their shacks themselves, the city would do it for them.
A private contractor, acting in the presence of city law enforcement officials, said he had dismantled about 13 shacks on Thursday.
The Cape Argus visited the camp after the officials had left and found the refugees trying to rebuild the shelters.
Cronje said the city had told the refugees many times to take down the shacks, but no one had heeded the warning.
“The shacks were built quite a while ago and we warned them that they were illegal. So 13 shacks were dismantled and those that remain will be dismantled shortly,” explained Cronje.
One refugee camp leader said they did not understand why their shacks had been dismantled only now.
“It is winter now and we were trying to protect ourselves, because the tents were leaking. “Besides, the city provided the material, we never went out to look for floor boards (the material used to build the shelters),” said John Kisonezi.
The refugees said they were upset that the shacks had been destroyed, saying that their children would get cold.
Kisonezi alleged that, at some point during the dismantling of the shacks, a six-month pregnant Somali woman was injured in a scuffle with a security guard and had to be taken to hospital for treatment.
Cronje said he was aware of the incident, but could not confirm the reason for the scuffle.
He said that law enforcement officials were investigating the incident.
The city said it would seek an eviction order for the refugees still living at the Blue Waters and if they were unopposed in their application, the matter would be heard in the Cape High Court on May 26.

• This article was originally published on page 6 of The Cape Argus on May 15, 2009

Published on the Web by IOL on 2009-05-15 14:52:00

By Francis Hweshe

A year after xenophobic violence spread across South Africa like wildfire, refugees continue to face threats of violence and authorities have done little to address the root cause of the attacks, says the Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in South Africa.
The attacks that began on May 11, 2008, in Alexandra, Gauteng, spread across the country, and resulted in 62 deaths and the displacement of thousands of foreigners.
The consortium said little had been done by the authorities to address the root causes of the violence, as threats of violence against foreigners remained common in some communities.
The consortium said the government, civil society and international organisations in South Africa faced numerous challenges if they wanted to prevent further attacks.
“Vigilantism remains common in the name of ‘fighting crime’. One such incident led to two non-nationals being forced to jump to their deaths from a high-rise building in Durban in January,” it said.
“Violent strikes and service delivery protests continue. In the past, these have resulted in attacks on non-nationals. There are currently no mechanisms to deal with community concerns before people resort to protest.”
The consortium said that there appeared to be no policing strategies to monitor crimes targeting particular groups at risk.
“Seemingly ‘isolated attacks’ on non-nationals continue in particular areas, and greater monitoring of these trends will allow for the creation of better strategies to prevent vulnerable groups being targeted,” the consortium said.
Director of the Forced Migration Studies Programme at Wits University, Dr Loren Landau, criticised the SA Human Rights Commission for “doing nothing” in investigating last year’s attacks.
To prevent further attacks, he said the government needed to realise that migration is a major issue that needed to be addressed thoroughly.
He said that because of Jacob Zuma’s presidency, expectations of service delivery were high, yet the ability to deliver would be low due to the global economic crisis.
This, he said, creates a dangerous situation, with locals bound to vent unfulfilled expectations on foreigners. Kaajal Ramjathan-Keogh, of Lawyers for Human Rights, said the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) had told them that 1 627 suspects were arrested following the violence, resulting in 469 cases being opened.
Expressing disappointment in the progress made by the NPA, Ramjathan-Keogh said that only 70 cases have been finalised with a guilty verdict.
A further 35 cases were finalised with a not-guilty verdict, 280 were withdrawn and 156 remain outstanding.
The government issued only statements during the attacks, but no investigations or proactive measures were taken to prevent such violence from happening in future, she said.She added that the National Intelligence Agency attributed the violence to a “third force”, but no further investigations took place to support that claim.

The NPA has declined to comment.

• This article was originally published on page 4 of The Cape Argus on May 12, 2009

Published on the Web by IOL on 2009-05-12 10:20:00