South African President Jacob Zuma on Saturday pleaded with foreigners to stay in South Africa as he canceled a state visit to Indonesia to deal with a wave of deadly xenophobic violence at home.
Three weeks of escalating violence in South Africa has claimed at least six lives and forced more than 5,000 immigrants to seek refuge in makeshift camps.
The unrest, which began in the eastern port city of Durban before spreading to other parts of the country, carries echoes of the riots that gripped South Africa in 2008, when 62 people were killed.
Photo: AFP
In the latest incident, police on Saturday said a foreigner died of stab wounds in Alexandra, a township north of Johannesburg. The impoverished area was the focus of much of the day’s violence, with officers firing rubber bullets to disperse looters.
More than 30 arrests were made overnight on Saturday in Johannesburg alone.
Under pressure to avoid a repeat of the 2008 bloodshed, Zuma traveled to Durban to visit a camp for foreigners displaced by the violence, but he faced a hostile reception from the crowd, who yelled: “Go home, go home” and “Too late, too late.”
“As government, we’re not saying to you: ‘go away.’ It is not every South African who is saying ‘go away.’ It is a very small number of people who say so,” Zuma said at Chatsworth camp, where he presented a check of 50,000 rands (US$4,100) to help people affected by the violence.
He vowed to end the unrest and sought to assure the crowd that there is a place for foreigners in South Africa.
“Even those who want to go home, they must know that when we have stopped the violence, they are welcome to come back,” Zuma said.
The South African leader had been scheduled to fly to Indonesia on Saturday, but he announced he was scrapping the trip “to attend to matters at home relating to the attacks on foreign nationals.”
The decision came as alarm grew within South Africa — and from the UN and foreign capitals — over the attacks. Neighboring Zimbabwe, Malawi and Mozambique have announced plans to evacuate their citizens.
Reflecting international concern, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said most victims targeted “are refugees and asylum seekers who were forced to leave their countries due to war and persecution.”
MILESTONE: The foreign minister called the signing ‘a major step forward in US-Taiwan relations,’ while the Presidential Office said it was a symbol of the nations’ shared values US President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed into law the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, which requires the US Department of State to regularly review and update guidelines governing official US interactions with Taiwan. The new law is an amendment to the Taiwan Assurance Act of 2020 focused on reviewing guidelines on US interactions with Taiwan. Previously, the state department was required to conduct a one-time review of its guidance governing relations with Taiwan, but under the new bill, the agency must conduct a review “not less than every five years.” It must then submit an updated report based on its findings “not later
CROSS-STRAIT COLLABORATION: The new KMT chairwoman expressed interest in meeting the Chinese president from the start, but she’ll have to pay to get in Beijing allegedly agreed to let Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) around the Lunar New Year holiday next year on three conditions, including that the KMT block Taiwan’s arms purchases, a source said yesterday. Cheng has expressed interest in meeting Xi since she won the KMT’s chairmanship election in October. A source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a consensus on a meeting was allegedly reached after two KMT vice chairmen visited China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Director Song Tao (宋濤) in China last month. Beijing allegedly gave the KMT three conditions it had to
STAYING ALERT: China this week deployed its largest maritime show of force to date in the region, prompting concern in Taipei and Tokyo, which Beijing has brushed off Deterring conflict over Taiwan is a priority, the White House said in its National Security Strategy published yesterday, which also called on Japan and South Korea to increase their defense spending to help protect the first island chain. Taiwan is strategically positioned between Northeast and Southeast Asia, and provides direct access to the second island chain, with one-third of global shipping passing through the South China Sea, the report said. Given the implications for the US economy, along with Taiwan’s dominance in semiconductors, “deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority,” it said. However, the strategy also reiterated
‘BALANCE OF POWER’: Hegseth said that the US did not want to ‘strangle’ China, but to ensure that none of Washington’s allies would be vulnerable to military aggression Washington has no intention of changing the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Saturday, adding that one of the US military’s main priorities is to deter China “through strength, not through confrontation.” Speaking at the annual Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California, Hegseth outlined the US Department of Defense’s priorities under US President Donald Trump. “First, defending the US homeland and our hemisphere. Second, deterring China through strength, not confrontation. Third, increased burden sharing for us, allies and partners. And fourth, supercharging the US defense industrial base,” he said. US-China relations under
RSS