Xenophobia Update II
Posted by Vicki Scholtz | 28 May, 2008Perhaps the truest tragedy is the way some politicians are using the situation for their own personal politicking. The press is full of accusations, finger-pointing, and attempts to score points off political opponents. And general WTF?!?
The Soccer World Cup LOC dude who shrugged off the issue, saying it would have blown over by 2010. Oh, so that's fine then.
The mayor, who wants refugees out of churches, so that they can be used for weddings. Nice - when people's lives are at risk, let's focus on the truly important stuff, like parties.
Was it coincidence that the evening after reports of the mayor told a drug vigilante group that the attacks were linked to drug dealing, that the violence spread to this city? Perhaps, but that makes inflammatory statements no less irresponsible.
Is this really what we've sunk to - a bunch of smug bigots who can't think beyond parties and ball games?
South African Politics are boring.
Posted by Poltiks? Whats that? 28 May 2008, 10:50Now that we have a continuing and focused engagement with the current crisis through the work of SHAWCO, SHAWCO Health and the Health Sciences Faculty, and the UCT Law Clinic and the Law Faculty, we will be moving beyond our "first response" and looking to the urgent and continuing issues of helping with understanding causes and pushing for effective public policy and more appropriate state responses to human rights issues. Now that much more information is available and circulating, there is less need for these leadership briefings; I will though continue to brief this wider list as urgent and UCT-specific issues arise.
One such issue is the growing need for a database of UCT staff and students who can accommodate fellow UCT staff and students in emergency need. We have a small but growing number of UCT staff and students who need to move from where they are currently living. We have been able to place some in the residence system but we will soon exhaust this capacity. As indicated previously, the contact person for this project is Margie Tainton: Work: 021 650 3028, Home: 021 531 9117 Cell: 084 582 6461. email is margie.tainton@uct.ac.za.
We benefitted earlier today from a comprehensive briefing from Mr Arvin Gupta, Senior Protection Officer for the UN High Commission for Refugees, who has been working closely with the UCT Law Clinic. Mr Gupta has now had the opportunity of visiting a number of holding sites, meeting with provincial and city officials (including the Mayor) and meeting with leaders of refugee communities. He is concerned about the apparent lack of common purpose on the part of local and provincial government and, in particular, about the current registration process at the "camps" where information is being collected in apparent contravention of legal authority. This issue is being actively pursued by the UCT Law Clinic with the assistance of the Cape Bar Association.There is a clear need to protect the rights of refugees and displaced foreign nationals in terms of the immigration legislation and the Refugees Act of 1998 which, among other provisions, entitles a refugee to an appropriate identity document, full legal protection and the right to stay in South Africa.
In general terms, there is a strong consensus that neither repatriation nor resettlement are viable or appropriate solutions to this crisis (and would probably be unconstitutional in many cases). The challenge will be to move rapidly to re-integrate those who have been displaced, requiring in turn a fully-informed analysis of the circumstances that have caused the crisis and appropriate public policy and government-directed interventions. This was a strong view expressed at the Crisis Response Task Team meeting yesterday morning, and needs to be the focus of UCT's next phase of engagement, drawing on the considerable expertise in different parts of the university.
Martin Hall
Posted by RSS Feed 28 May 2008, 10:56Deputy Vice Chancellor
www.hall.uct.ac.za
+27(0)21-6504002 (phone)
+27(0)21-6505099 (fax)
**Health and Human Rights Groups Condemn Cape Town Mayor Helen Zille
for Promotion of Internment Camps in Current Xenophobic Crisis**
(Cape Town, South Africa, 27 May 2008)the Treatment Action Campaign
(TAC), AIDS Law Project (ALP) and the AIDS and Rights Alliance for
Southern Africa (ARASA) jointly condemn Helen Zille, the Mayor of
Cape Town, for her continued insistence on setting up internment
camps in remote locations throughout the Cape Town Metro area to deal
with the thousands of people displaced by xenophobic violence and
harassment over the past two weeks.
Based on sound principles of public health and human rights as well
as accepted procedures for the management of displaced persons, we
are calling for all individuals to be sheltered as close to where
they originally resided, so that they can be near their regular
health facilities, schools and places of employment. Furthermore, we
believe that seeking local solutions for displaced persons can foster
voluntary reintegration into communities, which exile to internment
camps far from their original homes will simply make more difficult.
Additionally, filling up camps with thousands of people in close
proximity is a severe infectious disease risk for diarrhoea,
tuberculosis, and other serious infection. Finally, setting up a
parallel system of public services in the internment camps, including
health and sanitation, is inefficient and will create further stress
on normal provision of these services around the city and the
province.
We call on Cape Town Mayor Helen Zille and Western Cape Premier
Posted by RSS Feed 28 May 2008, 10:57Ebrahim Rasool to work together to ensure that displaced persons find
shelter as close to their original homes as possible, by opening all
public facilities under the jurisdiction of the city and the province
to temporarily house these individuals as the first step towards
community reintegration. The groups are also calling for additional
resources to be made available to promote reintegration of displaced
persons and their access to essential services as well as to protect
their health, safety and well-being. If these demands are not met
TAC, ALP and ARASA will consider legal action to ensure that the
internment camps are shut down and their inhabitants reintegrated
into their local communities of origin in a timeous manner.