ANTI-IMMIGRANT PROTESTS ERUPT IN PRETORIA
PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA Police fired stun grenades, rubber bullets and water cannons Friday as the latest wave of anti-immigrant protests broke out in South Africa’s capital, while President Jacob Zuma condemned the violence but said his country’s migrant burden is bigger than Europe’s.
A petition the protesters handed to the foreign ministry suggested that the government teach foreigners to speak properly.
“They are arrogant and they don’t know how to talk to people, especially Nigerians,” it said.
Resentment against foreigners has sometimes turned deadly in South Africa amid accusations that they take jobs from locals in a country where unemployment is above 25 per cent. Others are blamed for drug-dealing and other crimes. In 2015, anti-immigrant riots in and around the city of Durban killed at least six people. In 2008, similar violence killed about 60 people.
The periodic backlash against foreigners has hurt the tolerant image South Africa has tried to present to the world after the long struggle to stop the harsh discrimination of white minority rule, which ended in 1994.