Representatives of Grahamstown residents displaced by last week’s looting of 300 spaza shops are hopeful about moves to reunite them with their communities.
Representatives of Grahamstown residents displaced by last week’s looting of 300 spaza shops are hopeful about moves to reunite them with their communities.
The town’s religious leaders have stepped in to lead a series of community meetings, after looting and intimidation in the town left 300 families displaced, and without the means to earn a living.
The first meeting was on Tuesday at Seven Fountains, 23km south-west of Grahamstown, and on Wednesday, meetings were held at Hooggenoeg, in east Grahamstown, and at BB Zondani Hall in Fingo.
Tonight, meetings were scheduled for Tantyi and Mayfield.
The theme of the meetings, announced earlier this week, is ‘Stand up for peace in Makana’. Organised by the Ministers Fraternal, the aim is to hear people’s concerns, and address the rumours that triggered a wave of looting of immigrant-owned spaza shops, and intimidation of their owners.
Councillors for those areas, along with the South African Police Service, were brought to the meetings to address local residents’ concerns.
It took a while for BB Zondani Hall in Fingo Village to fill up last night – “They’re still coming from work,” said Ward 10 councillor Vuyani Kolisi, at about 6pm when the meeting was due to start.
Kolisi, and 10 police officers, including Grahamstown Station Commander Colonel Vuyisiwe Tembani, were lined up in the front of the hall to face questions.
Although there were uncomfortable moments, Ministers Fraternal chairperson Khaya Mcekana said the fact that people participated was what made him hopeful about the process.
Many of the 300 people seated in the hall jumped to their feet and shouted, outraged when Tembani told them the police were there to answer questions only about cases her station was involved in – not the Joza Station.
“It didn’t sit well with them,” Mcekana said. “At first they were afraid that she was going to run away from the issues.
“To them, Grahamstown equals Joza, so they wanted Colonel Tembani to tell them everything that was relevant to their concerns.”
Many of those in the hall also demanded answers about service delivery issues – and a request to rather talk to councillors about those drew an outrage cry from the participants.
“Where are the councillors! Where are the councillors!” they shouted.
It was because, rather than in spite of those outbursts that Mcekana felt it had been successful.
“I am hopeful – especially because people participated. Even though they are so angry and frustrated, and even though what some had to say was nothing to do with the agenda at hand – at least they were given the chance to air their views.
“Of course, their councillors must make time to deal with those concerns – but this time was called specifically to address the rumours.”
Seven Fountains
The first meeting, on Tuesday, was at Seven Fountains because that’s where Grahamstown businessman Tariq Hayat owns a farm.
It was there around midday on Thursday 22 October that 150 people gathered.
“They broke my gate,” said Hayat.
He wasn’t there – this was all being relayed to him by phone by terrified staff.
“They said they had got information from town that I had dead bodies in my house,” he told Grocott’s Mail.
Hayat instructed his employee to give keys for all the buildings on the property to three representatives of the community.
“They went to every room,” Hayat said. “Every storeroom, every cupboard."
They found nothing to support their claims.
The crowd’s action, and Hayat’s response to it, were extremely significant.
In recent months, in Grahamstown, several bodies have been found and the police are investigating those murders.
Fuelled by gossip, and anxiety within communities, various versions of a rumour developed. Some of the looters explicitly referred to the rumour at the start of the mob action on Wednesday 21 October.
In a pamphlet responding to the rumours, the South African police said emphatically: “There are no serial killers in Grahamstown; There are no ‘body parts’ murders happening in Grahamstown; There has been no genital mutilation on any of the bodies found in Grahamstown; No foreign national is a suspect or has been arrested in connection with the bodies found. There is no link between foreign nationals in Grahamstown and the deaths being investigated.”
Hayat, like many other immigrant businesspeople in this town, has lived here for decades.
Resident
Originally from Pakistan, he has been here for 20 years and counts himself as a Grahamstown resident.
Others who fled their homes in fear of being targeted as "foreigners" come from countries across Africa and Asia.
In their public statement pleading for a resolution to the crisis, the wives of displaced business owners said their husbands had come from Bangladesh, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestine, Senegal, Somalia, Sudan and Zimbabwe.
Residents associated with 300 businesses in Grahamstown East fled their homes after mobs looted the shops.
The looting began around 11.30am on Wednesday 21 October, soon after a protest by taxi drivers against poor roads ended.
It happened at the same time as a separate march by Rhodes University staff and students as part of a cross-campus national day of action against fee increases.
The actions proceeded at opposite ends of the town.
No violent or criminal acts were reported in connection with student protests against fee increases in Grahamstown.
Sporadic looting continued in Grahamstown East over the next few days, sometimes but not always accompanied by threats.
Many of the displaced residents have left to stay with friends and family in other towns. Around 500 are being housed in a safe zone in the area.
Grahamstown leadership in the form of the Anti-Xenophobic Group set up in response to the current crisis, along with municipal councillors and the police, have been called to address the community meetings.
The schedule for the rest of the week is as follows:
Thursday 29 October at 4.30pm: Tantyi Hall and Mayfield (tent);
Friday at 4.30pm: Noluthando Hall and Extension 9 Hall.
There will be a mass meeting at 1pm on Sunday at the Indoor Sports Centre in Extension 6, which accommodates 3 000 people.
At 1pm on Friday, a group of women displaced by the looting and intimidation will stage a protest in front of the City Hall.
They list eight demands that include dealing with the xenophobic outburst in Grahamstown, as well as generally improving socio-economic conditions, and for councillors to stop "dividing people”.
Truth from fiction
Speaking about this week's meetings, ANC subregional chairperson Mabhuti Matyumza said attendance had been good so far. However, Matyumza says people want to be in a position to be able to separate truth from fiction.
"They want to know if this is true or not, most of them can see that they have been misled by whoever is misleading them," he said. Matyumza said it was clear that people had different concerns with regard to the current situation.
"The reality is that there are people who have their own grievances. Some say they don't want them to come back and there are those who say they want them back because they have left a big gap," he said.
Speaking about the Seven Fountains meeting, Matyumza said the turn out was good.
"It was very well attended and well articulated by the police in terms of the mixed feelings that are out there," he said.
Matyumza said people there said they were not aware that they had been lied to [ie that a false rumour had been spread]and admitted that they owe an apology to the foreign nationals.
"The meeting agreed through the station commander that he would facilitate a meeting between himself and the shop owners."
Matyumza said most of the people at the BB Zondani meeting wanted the displaced residents to come back.
"But the younger people, for their own personal reasons, don't want them to come back," he said.
"The community of that area is much calmer now," Matyumza said.
"At least they are able to say these people must come back, because they can see this thing was orchestrated," he said.
Matyumza said the Hooggenoeg meeting hadn't gone as well as the other meetings.
Matyumza says he chaired that meeting, but the people weren't happy with the police contribution to it.
"According to the people, they couldn't respond in a manner that satisfied them," he said.
Matyumza said the next phase would be a programme to reintegrate the residents into the community. Matyumza said the events of this week should be seen as a learning experience.
"You have structures like the community policing forums," he said. "That's why people were calling for the CPFs to be reinforced."
Chairperson of the Anti Xenophobic Group Dr Naveed Anjum, who is also chairperson of the Grahamstown Muslim Association said he was "realistic but positive" about the moves to re-unite the displaced residents with their communities.
At a meeting with around 300 of the displaced residents earlier this week, he said, "Definitely everyone understands how things should be in our communities. It's just a few criminal elements that have become involved here."
