19 May 2008

Media statement by Justice Pius Langa, the Chief Justice of South Africa

I would like to express my dismay and deep sadness at the recent and continuing acts of violence committed in our country against our brothers and sisters from other African states. My condolences go to those who have been bereaved and I have nothing but the deepest sympathy for all the victims of this violence.

The conduct of those responsible for the attacks does not reflect the values of South African society embedded in our Constitution. Our legal system and the Constitution which is the supreme law, are firm and clear in their recognition of the fundamental human rights of all who find themselves inside our borders.

These rights include the right to life, the right to personal security, the right not to be unfairly discriminated against and certainly the right to human dignity.

Any violation of fundamental human rights must be condemned in the strongest possible terms.  It is all the more reprehensible when directed against vulnerable groups in our society, such as women, children and other defenceless people. We cannot deny or destroy the human dignity of others without damaging our own as human beings.

Our task as South Africans is to uphold the rule of law and the values and rights in our Constitution, which was born out of the struggle for justice and freedom in our land, and to serve as an example for our continent and the world.  Ignoring this will negate the gains this country and its people have achieved.  There are major challenges we still need to overcome as a nation  and as a people ; I refer to the serious and urgent problems of poverty, hunger, homelessness and joblessness, which are the aftermath of apartheid rule, and which are still with us. Only a concerted effort by all will win us the ultimate victory that is our people's due. We cannot win if we resort to the weapons of oppression, division and destruction of one another.

I accordingly call on all the people in this country to do everything in their power to bring an end to these attacks, to foster understanding among all our people, including those who come from beyond our borders and to promote respect for the rule of law and the rights of all human beings.

22 May 2008

Law Society calls for urgent measures to deal with xenophobic attacks

The Law Society of South Africa (LSSA) expresses its grave concern and condemns the ongoing violence and human rights abuses being perpetrated against foreign nationals, asylum seekers and others in the xenophobic attacks that have spread in various areas of the country over the past few days.

'Our Constitutional Court has confirmed that the rights contained in the Bill of Rights apply and extend to everyone, and are not limited to South African citizens only,' say LSSA Co-Chairpersons Vincent Saldanha and CP Fourie.

They add : 'These rights include the right to life, dignity, equality, freedom from violence – whether from public or private sources –  freedom of movement, not to be deprived arbitrarily of property, bodily and psychological integrity, access to health care, food, water and social security. In addition there are the rights of women not to be abused as well as the rights of children to family care, basic nutrition and health care and to be protected from maltreatment and degradation'.

The LSSA calls on attorneys to participate in and assist with civic, community and policing forums to mediate between parties who have suffered losses and others who believe they have genuine grievances and concerns that may have led to the xenophobic attacks. 'Attorneys are equipped with the necessary skills to mediate between parties and to provide information on the rights and duties of citizens in a constitutional democracy', say Mr Fourie and Mr Saldanha.

'The LSSA also stresses that perpetrators must be seen to be apprehended speedily and prosecuted to the full extent of the law,' say the Co-Chairpersons.

The LSSA adds its voice to calls for an urgent summit on xenophobia to deal with the current crisis and to establish the root causes of the attacks, so as to find immediate solutions as well as long-term policies to deal with and eradicate xenophobia and to educate all in South Africa as to the rights and duties of all people who live in our country. The LSSA commits itself to participating in such a summit and any initiatives that may arise from it.

Issued on behalf of the Co-Chairpersons of the Law Society of South Africa
by Barbara Whittle
Communication Manager, Law Society of South Africa
Telephone : 012-366 8800 / 083-380 1307
Email : barbara@lssa.org.za
Website : www.lssa.org.za

23 May 2008

Statement by the SADC Lawyers' Association

Southern Africa

1. The SADC Lawyers Association is deeply concerned by and condemns the recent outburst of xenophobic violence in parts of South Africa which resulted in a number of people losing their lives and others being seriously injured.

2. Our Southern African democracies have their foundations in democratic values such as a climate of legality, the rule of law and fundamental human rights including freedom from unfair discrimination.  The principle of non-discrimination is deeply embedded in the values of the new democratic societies that we sought to create by rejecting the injustice and inequality of apartheid.  The recent outburst of xenophobic violence is the very antithesis of the new societies people of Southern Africa sought to create when they vigorously campaigned and fought against the inequality and injustice of apartheid.  Accordingly, xenophobia represents a betrayal of some of the major goals of our democratic struggles and should be condemned in the strongest possible terms.

3. Also to be condemned is the bad governance, violence, gross violations of human rights and attendant economic deterioration in various parts of Africa which have resulted in wide spread violations of socio economic rights and an increase in the injustice of poverty.  We urge governments of Africa to ensure observance of good governance and the enjoyment of the fundamental rights of their people.

4. We convey our condolences to the bereaved and those who suffered injury and loss of property as a result of the violence and urge the authorities concerned to ensure that perpetrators are brought to justice.

5. The SADC Lawyers Association welcomes and supports the leadership and wise counsel of the Honourable Mr Justice Pius Langa, Chief Justice of South Africa, in his recent statement on the subject of xenophobic violence.

6. The SADC Lawyers is a federation of Law Societies and Bar Associations in the SADC region.  It is committed to supporting the rule of law, human rights and strong and independent democratic institutions including the Judiciary and Bar Associations.

Sternford Moyo
President
Southern African Development Community Lawyers Association

23 May 2008

Xenophobic and other violence in South Africa

The National Association of Democratic Lawyers (NADEL) joins with all the progressive forces in South Africa and the world in condemning the violence which had taken place in parts of Gauteng, and which has now spread its ominous wings to many other parts of South Africa. This violence is a blot on our country which has produced one of the finest Constitutions in the world and which in 1994 was born as a beacon to the warring nations, of peace, reconciliation and justice for all. NADEL supports the call for government to act swiftly to bring this violence to a halt and to hold the perpetrators to account.

NADEL also calls on the Government :

1.	to hold a full enquiry, in the form of a Judicial Commission, to investigate all the factors and causes that gave rise to this crisis, identify persons or organizations if any, who may have instigated this dastardly activity and recommend appropriate action against such persons ;
2.	to offer structural, financial, psychological and any other appropriate relief to all the victims of this violence ;
3.	to strengthen and assist to revitalize the non-governmental and community based organizations so that civil society can be brought to the pre-1994 levels ;
4.	to provide political and moral leadership that will restore the peoples’ confidence in the rule of law, respect for all independent institutions of our democracy, like the judiciary, the prosecutorial authority, the police services and the media.

NADEL believes that these amongst other suggestions will help us to retrace our post 1994 steps that allowed South Africa to walk proudly on the world stage and rebuild our nation to reach the level that it should have been in 2008. Moreover, the failure to condemn dictatorial conduct, violence by gangsters and paramilitary structures that act against democratic programmes in neighbouring countries can only serve to spawn similar conduct within our borders. Justice, truth and non violence is hardly in the vocabulary of political speeches of leaders in Parliaments, both nationally and provincially, especially over the past year. The moral fibre of our nation has shrunk. The consequences are there to see in our schools, tertiary and other institutions of learning and broader society. South Africa is at the crossroads. Our leadership has major responsibilities to point the country in the way that we marched as a nation after 1994.

25 May 2008

Radio and television address to the nation by the President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, on the occasion of Africa Day

Fellow South Africans :
Today, the 25th of May, all of us, Africans on the Continent and in the Diaspora join together to celebrate Africa Day. We therefore take this opportunity to convey the best wishes of our Government and the people of South Africa to all Africans everywhere.

We also join other Africans to renew our pledge to work together for the rebirth and renewal of the African continent and the advancement of Africans wherever they may be.

We also recommit ourselves to work with other Africans in our region and the rest of our Continent to promote the achievement of the goal of African unity. That unity also means that in our own country, South Africa, we must continue to live together with our brothers and sisters from other African countries as good neighbours.

On this day, wherever we may be, we should be proud of our identity as Africans and do nothing that brings shame and humiliation on ourselves both as a country and as Africans.

Sadly, here in South Africa, we mark Africa day with our heads bowed. The shameful actions of a few have blemished the name of South Africa through criminal acts against our African brothers and sisters from other parts of the continent, as well as other foreign residents especially from Asia.

Our television sets, newspapers and other media have brought us shocking images of violence against people from other countries who live in our country, including cold-blooded acts of murder, brutal assault, looting and destruction of their property.

Never since the birth of our democracy, have we witnessed such callousness. As part of the reflection that Africa Day requires of all of us, we must acknowledge the events of the past two weeks as an absolute disgrace.

The violence and criminality we have seen perpetrated by a few South Africans is opposed to everything that our freedom from apartheid represents.

The violence and criminality we have seen by a few South Africans stands against everything we have sought to do to build a humane and caring society built on the values of Ubuntu.

The actions of these few individuals do not reflect the values of our people who for decades have lived together with their fellow African brothers and sisters – whom they accept, without question, truly as their own!

As South Africans there are some things we must never forget.

We must never forget that our struggle for liberation has always been both national and Pan-African. For this reason, when the ANC was established 96 years ago it included peoples from the rest of our region, stretching as far North as present-day Zambia.

We must never forget that our economy was built by the combined labour of Africans drawn from all countries of our region, many of whom died in our mines together with their fellow South African workers.

Neither should we forget that many people from other African countries helped to build our liberation movement, while many in our region died because of apartheid aggression as they supported us in the struggle to defeat apartheid.

We must also sustain the understanding that our own progress and prosperity is dependent on the progress and prosperity of our neighbours and other African countries.

This means that we must remain firm in our commitment to work hard to achieve the goal of the renewal of our continent, understanding that again in this instance, an injury to one is an injury to all.

Though it will not and must never be allowed to succeed, the violence and criminality we have seen by some South Africans seeks to soil the good name of the best of our leaders, such as John Dube, Pixley ka Isaka Seme, Clements Kadalie who was himself of Malawian origin, Chief Albert Luthuli who spent the first years of his life in Zimbabwe, Lilian Ngoyi, Thomas Nkobi who was himself of Zimbabwean origin, Oliver Tambo, Nelson Mandela and others such Joe Slovo and Ruth First, themselves children of migrants.

These leaders, together with the overwhelming majority of our people, have always understood that they are South Africans and Africans : they are both local and continental.

None of these leaders, nor the majority of our people, would ever countenance such savagery as we have seen in the last two weeks.

For this reason, many of our communities have rallied together to defeat the senseless agitation of the few seeking to mount attacks on people from other parts of the continent.

I refer here to communities such as Diepsloot in Johannesburg, Hammanskraal outside Tshwane, Mkhambathini in KwaZulu-Natal, communities in the Western Cape, many others throughout the country and various religious communities.

Many of our people, black and white, have come out to condemn this barbarity, offering food, shelter and clothing to those affected. We commend and thank all these patriots and appeal to them to continue their good work, to reject and isolate the criminals in our midst and extend a hand of friendship to our foreign guests who are nothing more than our fellow-human beings.

Our National Disaster Management Centre has been working with all the relevant government departments, business, religious and humanitarian organisations, as well as the United Nations High Commission for Refugees urgently to respond to the humanitarian requirements of those who have been displaced.

Fellow South Africans,
While government seeks, always, to address people's concerns, nobody will be allowed to pervert those concerns by targeting vulnerable people from other countries.

Whatever concerns exist, including those about housing, jobs and so on, these can and must be addressed in a manner that is consistent with the dignified, humane and caring characteristics that define the majority of our people – not through criminal means. They must be addressed through the structures of our democratic system.

Humanity, democracy and protection of the law are indivisible. What begins as attacks on people from other countries also involves, as we have seen, the killing, rape and looting of property belonging to fellow South African citizens.

Everything possible will be done to bring the perpetrators to justice. Last week, we approved the deployment of units of the South African National Defence Force immediately after we received this request from the Ministry of Safety and Security and the South African Police Service.

We have issued the necessary instructions to these forces and other law-enforcement bodies to do everything necessary to stop and apprehend the killers and looters, and ensure that everybody in our country lives in conditions of safety and security.

Working together with the South African National Defence Force, the Police have already apprehended more than 250 alleged perpetrators. The police will continue to do their job and will root out of our communities the criminal elements who deserve to be nowhere else but in jail!

Nobody should be left in doubt about the seriousness with which the entire government views this matter. No one should doubt the capacity of the State to deal firmly and decisively with criminal elements, however daring they may be.

All our communities should remain ever vigilant, making it forever impossible for anyone to manipulate their concerns and aspirations for criminal purposes.

We also urge all our people to convey any information they may have about the planned activities of the criminal elements to the Police Service to empower them to act on time to protect everybody in our country.

Fellow South Africans,
Civic education is a vital part of what we need to do to deal with the events of the last two weeks. We must all assist one another to understand the phenomenon of migration, its global nature, its causes and how others elsewhere in the world manage it, avoiding its mismanagement.

I also call upon community, political, religious, civil society, media and other leaders of our people to act together against the manipulation of our people by criminal elements. This is the time for unity – it is a time to speak with one voice against something which if it takes root, will take us back to a past of violent conflict which no one among us can afford.

Government has set up an Inter-Departmental Task Team to investigate all possible causes of the attacks on foreign nationals and to make recommendations about action that needs to be taken to prevent the recurrence of the violence we have experienced and may continue to experience.

In this regard I must restate that our Government is firmly of the view that it would be wrong to isolate and segregate our foreign guests in special camps. Instead, we must build on the tradition of many decades of integrating our foreign guests within our communities.

This also means that all of us, Government, popular organisations and communities will have to create the conditions conducive to good neighbourly relations between ourselves as South Africans and our foreign guests.

I would like to reiterate that while government will do everything in its power to address our people's concerns, we will never accept violence and the destruction and looting the property of any person regardless of their country of origin, as legitimate ways of addressing those concerns.

The organs of state have been fully mobilised to ensure law and order and protect everybody in our country.

We are working on an urgent basis with all other South Africans of good will to attend to the needs of those who have been displaced.

All other measures will be taken to avoid the recurrence of the criminal violence which has besmirched the good image of South Africa.

On this day, Africa Day, let us pause to reflect on what it means to be a human being, a South African and an African. Thus we shall be able to answer the question whether we are on the right path towards the dawn of a new day for Africa and her people.

Africa Day invokes the legacy of freedom, a legacy that must be protected, cherished and passed on to future generations.

We have a responsibility to defend human freedom and human life. We dare not shirk our responsibility.

I wish everyone a happy and peaceful Africa Day.

Issued by : The Presidency
25 May 2008
Source : The Presidency (http://www.thepresidency.gov.za)