Zuma: marches were anti-crime, not xenophobic

Foreign nationals armed with bricks look on as a police helicopter circles overhead during protests in Pretoria. Pictures: Bongani Shilubane/Independent Media

Foreign nationals armed with bricks look on as a police helicopter circles overhead during protests in Pretoria. Pictures: Bongani Shilubane/Independent Media

Published Feb 25, 2017

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Pretoria – President Jacob Zuma has warned refugees in the country to behave or else risk being discriminated against by government.

Zuma was speaking to the media on the sidelines of the launch of Operation Phakisa in Roodeplaat to speed up service delivery in the agricultural sector.

His stern warning to foreigners was made as the marches denouncing illegal immigrants were staged in Pretoria.

Zuma said: “One of the things we do in South Africa, we are not operating like other countries. In other countries refugees are put in camps, but because we respect the human rights, we don’t.

“But if they operate the way they do, they may be forcing us to discriminate (against) them and yet we thought we could handle the situation.”

In the same breath, he made a clarion call to the locals to desist from displaying xenophobic tendencies and march peacefully against crime.

He said the media reports again suggested that the marches were xenophobic in nature. He pleaded with the media to portray the “true” picture of what the marches were about. “I was told that the marchers in Mamelodi actually had foreigners with them, who are anti-crime. It is important to the media as communicators to make that point. We tend to emphasise xenophobia, even though those people have not talked about it,” he said.

Protesters clashing with foreigners in PTA CBD @IOL pic.twitter.com/uS59VDypsu

— Zelda Venter (@ZeldaVenter) February 24, 2017

Protesters moving through PTA CBD, armed with sticks hitting on shop windows @IOL pic.twitter.com/OFmIJNfPjV

— Zelda Venter (@ZeldaVenter) February 24, 2017

This woman "Allahu Akbar" waving a panga #TshwaneUnrest @AfriNewsAgency pic.twitter.com/C7lh9jNwPE

— Jonisayi W. Maromo (@Jonisayi) February 24, 2017

He stressed the marches were a demonstration against crime affecting communities, not xenophobic.

“The march in Mamelodi is anti-crime in the main; it is not xenophobic and I have been told that the people leading the march are saying so. It is not an anti-foreigner march. It is not anti-Nigerians as it has been portrayed,” he said

He said people were forced to march because of incidences of drugs and prostitution impacting negatively on the country.

“Of course crime if it goes on too long it reaches a point where the citizens feel they can no longer tolerate it,”he said.

Zuma said he recently had a meeting with the security cluster with respect to crime, adding the government was working hard to deal with the situation.

“We can’t say we are going to co-exist with drugs. We need to have a solution,”he said.

Zuma further pointed out that he was familiar with the complaints by the police who believed the justice system was lenient on criminals.

“If our laws are weak let’s strengthen them,”he said.

Operation Phakisa is focused on Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development.

The programme, modelled around the Malaysian Big Fast Results methodology, is used by government to intensively focus on a particular sector, bringing together government, business, labour and academia to dissect and find solutions to delivery problems.

The programme has successfully been implemented in education, health and the ocean economy and now aims to transform the agricultural sector and accelerate land reform to ensure an inclusive rural economy.

Pretoria News

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