Durban - King Goodwill Zwelithini got off relatively lightly because the Human Rights Commission found his comments “hurtful and harmful” to foreigners, but that they were not a “call to arms”.
It found he had been addressing social ills rather than inciting violence when he said foreigners should go home. The commission has left it to the king to decide whether he wants to apologise.
This finding, announced on Tuesday, has infuriated foreigner rights groups which had hoped for a stronger finding against the Zulu monarch.
The findings are contained in a preliminary report released on Tuesday.
READ THE FULL REPORT HERE
In the report, the commission asked the king to indicate whether he would be “desirous” of making a public apology to foreigners and if he would participate in a private mediated settlement that would be presided over by the commission.
The report came after the commission received complaints earlier this year that the utterances made by the king amounted to hate speech and was linked to the subsequent violent attacks against foreigners.
In the violence, thousands of foreigners were displaced and at least seven people were killed in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.
Sagie Narsiah, of the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s department of social sciences, said on Tuesday that while he had not seen the report, the findings suggested that the commission had taken a “moderate approach” in the matter.
“It appears that they have taken this approach so as not to be seen as attacking the king, whose political profile has increased over the years and who has a lot of power,” he said.
Narsiah said the root causes of the violence were poverty, inequality and unemployment, but that the statements made by the king and other leaders could have spurred people to act.
Marc Gbaffou, of the African Diaspora Forum, one of the complainants in the matter, said the organisation was “not happy” with the report.
“On the one hand, the report said that the comments were hurtful and harmful, but then it says that it did not incite violence.
“We do not understand how this can be as we know that while there were incidents of violence in Gauteng before the king’s speech, violence erupted in Durban after he made it. There is an element of inciting people to be violent.”
Maurice Smithers, of the People’s Coalition against Xenophobia, said the commission’s finding was “disingenuous”.
“While I have not seen the report to know the reasons for the findings, there was an upsurge of violence in KwaZulu-Natal after the speech was made. There are people who consider themselves as subjects of the king and may have taken his comments as encouragement to act,” said Smithers.
He said there should have been a “stronger finding” against the king.
“They could have found that it was not possible to directly link the speech to the violence, but the commission could have found that what he said was incorrect as violence followed and he should have been asked to be more cautious as a leader when he makes comments.”
The commission found that the king had made the speech at a moral regeneration conference to address a range of social ills and had been critical of foreigners but also of locals.
“It is difficult to conclude that the respondent was not acting in pursuance of a legitimate freedom to express himself on social issues of concern to his community,” the report said.
In its response, the king’s office had told the commission that the allegations were “frivolous and devoid of any substance”.
The response, which came from the Royal Household Trust and a committee that had been appointed by the king to respond, said the king had not intended to incite violence against foreigners.
“It was never His Majesty’s intention that his words be misused and abused. The fact that people acted unlawfully under mistaken and erroneous belief that they were carrying out his orders is deeply regretted and unfortunate.”
The king’s adviser, Judge Jerome Ngwenya, said the king’s office had not yet received the report and could only comment after it had read it and had time to consider it.
The Mercury
* Use IOL’s Facebook and Twitter pages to comment on our stories. See links below.