Zulu Leader Makes Plea to Stop anti - India Sentiment in SA
Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi, the traditional prime minister of the Zulu nation, has made an impassioned plea for an end to anti-Indian sentiment that has seen rising tensions between Indian-origin South Africans and their Black compatriots.
The tensions have been particularly high in the sprawling Indian township of Phoenix, north of Durban, and residents of three surrounding Black areas following the deaths of 22 people in Phoenix during the riots and looting last week by vigilante groups trying to protect their businesses and homes from looters.
The unrest started with protests after the jailing of former president Jacob Zuma on July 7, but rapidly degenerated into mass mob looting and arson allegedly fuelled by poverty and unemployment.
Zuma was sentenced to 15 months imprisonment by the country’s apex court for contempt of court after he repeatedly refused to testify at the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture, where several witnesses have implicated him in corruption.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has called the incidents “a failed insurrection” in an organised way. Buthelezi said in an interview on TV channel Newzroom Afrika (sic) that Indians and Blacks had lived side-by side for generations, as he decried the killings in Phoenix.
“This (the killings) is most unfortunate. The people who did this are very stupid, because they should have known beforehand what was likely to follow after that, that there would be feelings of wanting to retaliate,” Buthelezi said.
“I’ve always lived cheek-by-jowl with the Indian people. Some of the Indians are committed to social cohesion, because there is no future if we don’t promote and consolidate social cohesion,” said the 92-year-old politician who started the mainly-Zulu Inkatha Freedom Party in 1975.
(Source: PTI & The Pioneer)
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