President Cyril Ramaphosa called on the nation to work together to end the violence that has engulfed the country this week and damaged confidence in SA as he scrambled against riots that overshadowed the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Cape Town.
In a televised address on Thursday night, Ramaphosa, called for calm after a week of anti-immigrant attacks and protests against gender-based violence in which he was criticised for lack of leadership and slow response.
"Let us not be provoked… It is a time for all of us who live in this beautiful country to confront our challenges directly and earnestly, not through violence but through dialogue," he said.
The country was hit by a wave of violence and looting in its economic hub of Gauteng, which has overshadowed the WEF meeting being held in Cape Town where SA hoped to showcase itself and attract much-needed investment.
Ramaphosa earlier on Thursday also had to abandon his duties at the WEF to address protesters against gender-based violence in Cape Town.
The president spoke to a hostile crowd outside parliament, where he faced boos and jeers while telling the crowd that he wanted men to take responsibility for the rape and deaths of women in SA.
"Let us declare enough is enough," Ramaphosa said in the televised address.
The president spoke about measures the government would look at putting in place to curb the violence. These would include looking at changing legislation to make the National Register for Sex Offenders public, and ensuring life imprisonment for those perpetrators.
On the violence in Gauteng, Ramaphosa said at least 10 people had been killed. Two of them were foreign nationals.
Since Sunday, 423 people had been arrested in Gauteng and 21 suspects in the violence against foreign truck drivers in KwaZulu-Natal, he said.
The president said no amount of anger, frustration and grievance could justify the attacks. Violence against mainly African immigrants has strained diplomatic relations between SA and its neighbours, with Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, boycotting the WEF meeting and issuing a travel warning advisory for SA.
The department of international relations confirmed on Thursday that the SA high commission in Abuja and its consulate in Lagos, Nigeria, were closed after threats of violence, but there had been no direct physical threat to diplomats or citizens.
Meanwhile, the SA Football Association (Safa) said that the match between Bafana and Madagascar scheduled for Saturday had been called off after Madagascar decided to withdraw.
Safa did not say whether the decision was because of the attacks.
Earlier this week, Bafana’s match against Zambia, which was to be played in Lusaka, was called off in response to the wave of attacks in SA.
The attacks in Gauteng have brought parts of Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni and Pretoria to a standstill as businesses closed shops in fear after a spate of violence and looting.
The wave of violence has seen leading SA businesses, which have extensive operations in other parts of Africa, speak out against the attacks. Standard Bank groupCEO Sim Tshabalala said SA stood "ashamed before our African brothers and sisters and before the world".
Speaking in Cape Town at the WEF, Absa chair Wendy Lucas-Bull said the attacks could be a blow to the company’s efforts to rebrand branches elsewhere on the continent from Barclays to Absa under the slogan “Africanacity”, and urged leaders to speak strongly against the violence.
“It’s important for SA’s political leaders to say very strong words on this thing, and then we’ve got to get the violence under control, fast,”, she told Business Day on the sidelines of the forum.
“I’m hoping that we can do that, but it does represent a resurging risk in terms of how does this impact on perceptions, in Zambia, in Kenya, in Tanzania etc, around SA companies.”,
Sanlam CEO Ian Kirk said the insurer, which has a presence in 34 African countries and was looking to expand this further, also condemned it.
With Sunita Menon, Lukanyo Mnyanda and Londiwe Buthelezi
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