South Africa Under Pressure to Send in Army As Anti-immigrant Violence Claims More Lives

The South African government is under growing pressure to send troops into Johannesburg's black townships for the first time since the apartheid era as African immigrants continued to flee a wave of killings and violence against foreigners.

Several people were killed overnight including two men, believed to be Mozambican miners, who were beaten to death as mobs moved through townships and squatter camps in search of immigrants they accuse of taking jobs and houses, or being responsible for rampant crime.

Another person was hacked to death and two others were badly injured yesterday in the Joe Slovo camp in East Rand. Shacks were set on fire and hundreds of immigrants fled to a community center.

It was also revealed that on Monday a South African businessman was burned alive in his home in Actonville after a mob accused him of hiring foreign workers.

At least 25 people have been murdered in recent days. Nearly 300 people have been arrested over the attacks and related crimes such as rape and looting.

About 20,000 Zimbabweans, Mozambicans and other Africans have sought refuge in police stations, churches and community halls, with more arriving by the hour. Hundreds have been forced to sleep outdoors with winter setting in.

The safety and security minister, Charles Nqakula, responded to accusations that the police were failing to get a grip on the situation by announcing the deployment of "specialized units" to combat the violence. "We are going hard on the situation," he told foreigners sheltering in a police station in East Rand.

But there were calls for the army to patrol the townships. In a debate on the crisis in the Gauteng provincial legislature yesterday, the leader of the opposition Democratic Alliance, Jack Bloom, accused the government of failing to respond forcefully enough to the crisis.

"President Thabo Mbeki is notoriously allergic to admitting that even the most obvious crisis is a crisis, so yet again people die because he is out of touch with reality, both here and in Zimbabwe," he said, adding that the military had to be sent into the townships to back up the police.

The move was backed by a coalition of South African human rights groups, which called the violence a "national emergency". But others have questioned whether the army can make a difference, pointing to its ineffectiveness in quelling anti-apartheid unrest in the past and the difficulties of patrolling the warren-like squatter camps.

The premier of Gauteng province, Mbhazima Shilowa, did not oppose the deployment of troops but said the decision had to be made by the government.

"The situation is dire and we must intervene and intervene forcefully," he said. "What kind of nation are we building - one which rejoices at someone who is burning, who is engulfed by flames?"

The contempt with which some of those responsible for the violence regard the authorities was exposed yesterday when Robert McBride, a regional police chief and prominent ruling African National Congress official, addressed a crowd in Ramaphosa squatter camp where several people have been killed. Someone threw a bottle at him, the police responded by firing plastic bullets and the mob returned to burning shacks.

The violence has been described as "shameful and criminal" by Mbeki. "Citizens from other countries on the African continent and beyond are as human as we are and deserve to be treated with respect and dignity," he said.

The ANC party leader, Jacob Zuma, also condemned the assaults on people from countries that provided refuge to ANC activists when their organization was banned during the apartheid era. He said he was disturbed that some of the attackers were singing Bring Me My Machine Gun, a song that has become the anthem of Zuma's supporters.

But the government was accused by a race relations organization of helping to lay the ground for the wave of xenophobic violence.

"Poor and ineffective governance had created a tinderbox of unmet expectations which exploded in Alexandra and has now spread to several other areas," the South African Institute of Race Relations said.