The Pakistan South Africa Association has donated R200 000 for Grahamstown business owners to get back on their feet, after a blitz of looting and intimidation that started here on Wednesday 21 October left 300 immigrant spaza shop owners financially ruined and their families uprooted.
The Pakistan South Africa Association has donated R200 000 for Grahamstown business owners to get back on their feet, after a blitz of looting and intimidation that started here on Wednesday 21 October left 300 immigrant spaza shop owners financially ruined and their families uprooted.
Pakistan’s Deputy High Commissioner, Nasir Awan, has expressed his sincere gratitude to the SAPS for protecting Pakistani and other immigrants and ensuring that no human lives were lost.
Meanwhile, a plan to set up a camp for the displaced people in the town has been put on hold as negotiations take place to continue housing up to 500 people in a safe zone 10km from Grahamstown for four more days, and shopowners are starting to return to their premises.
In a telephone interview yesterday, media officer for the Association, Zahid Afzal said a high-level meeting between Grahamstown police, Makana Municipality and Pakistan’s deputy high commissioner in South Africa, Nasir Awan, had been cordial and productive.
On the Association’s Facebook page he later wrote, “They appreciated the efforts of [the]association and high commission, and our brothers [affected by]xenophobia are returning back to their premises".
He said the officials had apologised for what happened and promised it wouldn’t happen again. Three representatives of the Association – Ahmad Raza Butt, Raja Shahzad Hassain and Nasar Khan – attended a community meeting in Joza on Sunday 1 November, They emphasised that, while they had come to support the 50 Pakistani shopkeepers and their families affected by the looting, they would in fact be assisting all the displaced shopkeepers.
“Three hundred shops were affected,” Ahmad told Grocott’s Mail. “Fifty of those are Pakistani-owed. But we will be helping all the affected shopkeepers – not just the Pakistani community.
“We do not know for sure whether the cause of this incident is really xenophobia, or something else. But we will anyway be offering help financially.” Butt and Hassain said they would be fixing all the shops vandalised during or after the looting, “so they can get back to work, so that they can put their lives back together – financially – and regain some morale.
“After that, we will see what we can do.” Afzal said the Association had also spoken to wholesalers, asking them to extend credit to the spaza shop owners, while they got back on their feet and rebuilt their stocks.
Grahamstown police spokesperson, Captain Mali Govender, confirmed that Awan had met with role players in the SAPS Grahamstown cluster’s Joint Operations Committee. Govender said this was in connection with the acts of criminality by locals which resulted in the displacement of foreign nationals.
"After a briefing by the Cluster Commander Brigadier Morgan Govender, he (Awan)… said the response of the SAPS [had been]exemplary. "He expressed his sincere gratitude to the SAPS for their protection and for ensuring that no human lives were lost,” Govender said.
"Meanwhile the Cluster [joint operations]are providing the necessary assistance to the displaced persons and making steady progress with the reintegration process."
Makana Municipality will in today’s special council meeting discuss the possibility of moving the displaced families to Fiddlers Green after the owner of their current accommodation said he would no longer be able to accommodate the families for free.
In an item on today’s council agenda, it is stated that Fiddlers Green has been identified as the location to house the families on a temporary basis. If this move is approved by Council, tents will be put up on the field, which is bordered by an old age home, a rubbish dump, a primary school and a bowling club.
According to the agenda item, officials are working with other stakeholders to ensure that conditions for housing the families are of an acceptable standard. The municipality has noted that it is important to address coordination between municipal efforts and those of the Joint Operations Committee (JOC).
The JOC is a committee that is convened by SAPS and is attended by all government departments. The agenda item also said that a reintegration plan needs to be created to augment that crafted by the JOC that focuses primarily on safety issues. This strategy must also include socio-economic strategies.
Disaster Management Unit manager, Khuselo Qupe, told Grocott’s Mail that work is being done to reintegrate the families back into the community. He added that the municipality is liaising with the relevant government departments and NGOs to develop a plan that not only reintegrates the displaced families back into their communities but that will also ensure that the shopkeepers are safe when they return to their shops.
He said the process had begun in areas like Hooggenoeg. Meanwhile, DA MP and Frontier constituency leader Andrew Whitfield has called for an urgent Parliamentary debate on the urgent need for intervention by the provincial government. On Thursday 29 October Whitfield tabled a motion that the house "debates the recent xenophobic violence in Grahamstown and the need for urgent intervention by the provincial government to restore peace and provide relief to the victims".
Whitfield said the violence and the plight of the residents affected by it had not received adequate attention fromthe government. Last Friday Whitfield wrote to the Eastern Cape Premier Phumulo Masualle, requesting his urgent intervention to provide relief to the displaced persons.
"The foreign nationals affected by the recent violence have rights enshrined in Chapter 2 of the Constitution and it is the government's duty to uphold these rights," Whitfield said. "Local non-profit organisations are working hard around the clock to feed and care for the victims of the violence.
However, their resources are finite and the need for government assistance is now critical." Also last week, Whitfield called for the establishment of a non-partisan Peace Forum composed of the collective leadership from all sectors of Grahamstown.
"This forum's aim should be to investigate ways to restore and sustain peace in Grahamstown and find sustainable solutions to the threat of xenophobic violence," Whitfield said.
He said areas of focus should include short-term relief through a fundraising effort to assist displaced persons; mobilisation of churches and other religious communities to unite against xenophobia; a sustained programme of regular community engagement with an emphasis on our common humanity; the formation of a local government structure to ensure assimilation of foreign nationals; and public education campaigns and attitudinal training.