Xenophobia outbreak: NRM study group calls for dialogue

By Francis Otucu

For fourth day in succession, South African police have been forced to fire on mobs in the greater Johannesburg area which are storming shops, mostly those owned by foreigners, in organized groups engaged in looting and torching targeted businesses.

In the process, the police have clashed with demonstrators.

Some demonstrators have been killed during the protests.

The xenophobic outbreak, this being latest, has attracted both sympathies and threats from ‘outsiders’.

Addressing at press conference in Kampala on Thursday, a youthful group under their umbrella body, Camp Fire Ideological Study Group of the National Resistance Movement said there is need for dialogue.

“There is need for dialogue with South African government on finding suitable solutions to immigration problems in Africa for the greater good of the people,” Augustine Otuko said in an appeal to top regional bodies; African Union and SADC.

Otuko urged the South African government especially the ANC leadership to exercise leadership and bring what he described unfortunate to an end, once and for all.

He however condemned attacks on foreign nationals as well as revenge attacks on South African business in African countries whose national he said have been affected as a result.

“The event demonstrate the highest level of deterioration of the spirit of pan Africanism and African solidarity that was exhibited in African liberation struggles against settler colonialism and apartheid,” Otuko, flanked by his colleagues Flavia Omondi, Patrick Obura and Andrew Onyuk among others, noted.

“We urge governments to take measures to stop the few elements in their societies that have taken to revenge attacks on South African Businesses and citizens,” he said.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Tuesday pledged to have the violent attacks stopped.