A Nation's Shame

Today, I am ashamed to be a South African. The following story filled the front pages of all the local papers on Monday, and was on international news last night:

Flames of Hate
Residents laugh as foreigner burns in his own blankets

Picture by Halden Krog

As we made our way through the Ramaphosa squatter camp in Reiger Park on Gauteng’s East Rand, a woman’s words made us freeze in horror. “They are burning people down there,” she said.

I ran to the nearest police officer and said: “The locals say they’re burning a person at the other intersection.”

Officers leapt into a Casspir and a Nyala, and drove through the debris and barricades in the road.

I ran after them, with other photographers following.

Two hundred metres down the road we found the first man. He had been severely beaten and was semi- conscious. Police thought he was dead, but later realised he wasn’t.

About 25m from him a man was on his knees. There was a mattress covering him, and it was on fire.

He, too, was alight.

Police threw the mattress off him and kicked sand onto him to put out the flames. Another officer ran over with a fire extinguisher, pointed it at him and extinguished the flames. Other officers radioed for medical help.

The man was alive, but barely. He groaned, but he could not speak.

It was all over in 20 seconds.

There was a concrete pillar lying near him, splattered with blood. We can only imagine what was done to him before he was set alight.

The police stayed with him until the paramedics arrived, doing what they could . But residents gathered at the scene were laughing.

Kim Ludbrook, a photographer, admonished them, and we reminded them this was human being and that what had happened was barbaric.

Still they laughed.

The burn victim, whose name has not been released, died last night in hospital.

Original story and more links here.

I can't believe the level of hate that is on display here right now. These people are our neighbours, who have fled their own countries, often as refugees, to try and build a better life here. They often end up living in shacks in squatter communities, scraping a living by selling fruit and junk items on street corners, trying to survive and raise their children in a country where there is still some hope for some kind of future. And now this - so far 22 have died simply for the 'crime' of not being South Africans.

If Mandela were dead, he would be spinning in his grave at what his successors have done with his bright, shining dream for this country. Time and again, our so-called democratic government has failed its own people and now it has failed the refugees from Zimbabwe, Mozambique and other African nations in turmoil, who fled here, seeking shelter and peace within our borders, and how found only more hate. And now, for some, death at the hands of an angry mob ...

I have no words, only deep shame and despair.