June 30 protests: Cosatu says migrant deadline has fuelled chaos and violence

Cosatu and the Western Cape Coalition Against Xenophobia (WCC-AX) have rejected the June 30 deadline for undocumented migrants to leave SA, warning that it has already fuelled violence.

The two organisations made the call at a joint press briefing in Cape Town on Monday, a day before the deadline set by a coalition of anti-immigration groups led by March and March.

The briefing was held at Constitution House. Cosatu’s Malvern de Bruyn read out a joint statement on behalf of both organisations.

Reading the statement, De Bruyn said the two groups stood united against March and March and accused it and allied groups of an escalating assault on African migrants.

“We reject with contempt the so-called June 30 deadline which has already caused so much chaos, suffering, and violence,” he said.

De Bruyn said the campaign was a brutal attempt to divide the working class and to distract from the government’s failures over more than 30 years.

He said migrants were being scapegoated for problems they did not cause.”This is the cause of our problems, not the 4% of migrants in the country,” he said.

He said the real blame lay with corrupt politicians, officials who loot public hospitals, wealthy company owners and the governing elite.

De Bruyn also accused employers of exploiting migrants by paying them below the minimum wage. He said the department of home affairs was itself creating undocumented migrants by failing to process their papers.

De Bruyn said SA had been built by migrant labour and drew a comparison with apartheid-era pass laws.

“We remember our battles against the dompas, and we now call for renewed resistance against apartheid logics of influx control that xenophobes have taken up,” he said.

He described the attacks on migrants as an attack on the working class as a whole.

“An injury to one is an injury to all. Our unity is our strength,” he said.

“We call on all South Africans to reject the June 30 fabricated deadline, to report any actions against migrants to the authorities and relevant civil society groups, and to act in the spirit of ubuntu and support their neighbours.”

After reading the statement, De Bruyn called on workers to remain vigilant ahead of the deadline. He said employers should be understanding if workers were unable to come in on June 30.

“Employers should be flexible on June 30 in case workers can for any reason not attend work, though it is a normal working day,” he said.

“All we want is a peaceful day.”

Lorna Houston, who also addressed the briefing, rejected the deadline.

“We condemn the June 30 deadline. We reject this,” she said.

Daniel Chuma of the WCC-AX said migrants were being unfairly targeted.

“Immigrants are not people who are irrelevant or objects,” he said.

“They are people who can contribute to the economy,” he added.

Chuma said many South Africans were employed by migrants, and that foreign traders selling fruit and vegetables in townships were feeding communities.

He rejected claims that migrants were behind crime or the drug trade.

“There is no immigrant who wants crime,” he said.

He questioned why a woman selling fruit in Soweto should be chased away for trying to survive.

“We reject there is an immigration crisis,” he said.

“The only crisis we have is a home affairs crisis.”

The June 30 deadline was set by the anti-immigration movement March and March, together with a coalition of other groups including Operation Dudula.

They have demanded that all undocumented foreign nationals leave the country by Tuesday and have called for a national protest on the day.

The date spread on social media in May after a fake poster bearing the government’s coat of arms and the Home Affairs name circulated online.

The government has dismissed the poster as false, said there is no such deadline, and said Tuesday will be treated as a normal working day.

In Cape Town, more than 2,000 Zimbabwean nationals, many of them women and children, are sheltering at the Cape Town Refugee Reception Centre, the home affairs building in Epping, waiting to be sent home before the deadline.

Many said they feared the June 30 protests could turn violent. The centre was built to handle about 300 people.

The City of Cape Town moved them there on Sunday, after they had spent days camped outside the Zimbabwean consulate in District Six, some for as long as five nights.

On Monday morning, many of those queueing at Epping said they had still not eaten.

The metro said the Epping centre was now the only official site processing voluntary returns, before people are taken to the Beitbridge border post.

Gift of the Givers said the building was holding far more people than it was meant to, and that some had arrived expecting to be handed travel documents on the spot.

Migrants make up fewer than four million of SA’s roughly 63 million people.

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