Gauteng president of the Mozambican Community Forum, Sulemane Gulamo Suleman was addressing the Africa Day Solidarity Walk and Cultural Festival in Alexandra.
He was the only immigrant community leader who attended the event, and even he too failed to attract his own ordinary countrymen and women.
He started off his address by sending his condolences to both South Africans and members of the immigrant community who lost their lives in the recent xenophobic attacks.
“I also would like to express our solidarity with those who were victims of the attacks as well, on both sides, and who were injured in the process and also lost their property. I still don’t understand up to this day why our Mozambican brothers are always targeted for attacks and killed in this barbaric manner,” Suleman said.
“I would like to urge our South African brothers and sister to work together, hand-in-hand with their fellow brothers and sisters from other African states, as we together can do more.”
He welcomed South African President Jacob Zuma’s condolences and apology to Mozambican nationals during his State visit last week.
Gauteng MEC for Community Safety and Alex resident, Sizakele Nkosi-Malobane, who was introduced as ‘Alexandra’s own Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’, said immigrants were welcome to live in South Africa and in Alexandra, in particular, as they have always done when they helped mine the gold that made the country one of the richest on the continent.
She urged the immigrant community to respect the laws and culture of South Africans, quoting the old adage which says ‘when in Rome, do as the Roman do’.
“They should not come here and commit crimes,” she said.
Turning to South Africans who attacked immigrants, Nkosi-Malobane said they were like a cow that sees itself in a mirror and fights. “We have other nationalities here such as the Chinese, Germans and other European and Asian nationalities who work in our country but are not accused of taking jobs away from locals, nor are they attacked and killed and their shops looted.”
Philani Ndebele from the Action Support Centre opened the official proceedings of the day with moment’s silence in remembrance of those who died during the xenophobic attacks, the students recently killed in Kenya and the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and those who died attempting to cross the oceans to other continents.
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