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Hundreds march against xenophobia
Graeme Hosken, Independent Online (SA)
May 26, 2008

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=15&art_id=vn20080526055003985C380646

Hundreds of foreigners and South Africans took to the streets of Pretoria in one of the country's biggest "uprisings" against xenophobic violence.

Armed with banners and shouting anti-xenophobic slogans, demonstrators braved the rain and cold as they flocked to the capital from across Gauteng yesterday to celebrate Africa Day.

The march coincided with anti-xenophobic and anti-Robert Mugabe marches in Lesotho, Botswana, Togo, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Niger, Liberia, Ghana, Gambia, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Benin, Angola and the UK.

The 500-strong crowd in Pretoria called on President Thabo Mbeki and all peace-loving South Africans to take action and stand up against the violent surge which has claimed, according to police, more than 40 lives.

Led by the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and several Zimbabwean human rights organisations, protesters marched on the Union Buildings, bringing traffic to a standstill and curious onlookers on to the streets and to their windows.

The march, according to an organizer, was aimed at highlighting the plight of foreigners in South Africa and Zimbabweans in their homeland.

Mathuta Lusinga, of the Zimbabwean human rights organization Peace and Democracy Project said: "We are beaten at home and we are beaten here.

"This is a crisis the South African government is refusing to recognize.

"It's a 'non-crisis' like the 'non-crisis' in Zimbabwe," he said, referring to President Thabo Mbeki's stance on Zimbabwe.

"It's clear he has forgotten his anti-apartheid slogan of 'an injury to one is an injury to all'.

"He says 'I am African', but what is he as an African doing to help solve Africa's problems? Where is he?

"He says there is no crisis in Africa, but he is never here long enough to know whether there is a crisis.

"It is about time he recognised what is and is not a crisis.

"Surely people being beaten to death and being set alight warrants calling the situation a monumental crisis?

"Surely it needs a president to stand up and say: 'Enough is enough. No longer will we tolerate what is happening to our fellow Africans,'" Lusinga said.

He said instead of uniting on Africa Day, the country was being divided.

"How can we be united when our brothers and sisters across the continent are being murdered on our streets?

"We should be ashamed about what we are doing to our fellow Africans. What we are doing is not African," he said.

TAC Gauteng deputy chairman Phillip Malindi said the organisation condemned the violence.

"What is happening is abhorrent. It is a slight on our country. It is something that should never have happened.

"All Africans, regardless of where you come from on the continent, should be condemning this violence. This is a crisis.

"Our country is in crisis. People are dying.

"The killings need to be stopped," he said.

The comments came as constitutional court Judge Johann van der Westhuizen, at a function in Pretoria this weekend, said it was important for all South Africans to become involved in the human rights debate.

"Citizens need to understand the values of the constitution. Many of the problems we are seeing with the violence in our country, especially with the attacks against foreigners, is because people don't understand the constitution," he said.

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