News
South Africa apologizes over Nigerian deportations
Nigeria Foreign Minister Olugbenga Ashiru, speaking to his National Assembly on Tuesday, linked the deportations to what he called the “xenophobia” faced by Nigerian immigrants living in South Africa who fear police who arrest them without cause.
Ibrahim rejected Ashiru’s charge.
“We are not a xenophobic country,” Ibrahim said Thursday.
But in 2008, South Africa saw a wave of violence against foreigners from elsewhere in Africa that left scores dead. Most of the attacks occurred in squatter camps, where South Africans and foreigners, both camps impoverished, compete for housing and jobs.
South Africa has the continent’s most successful economy, and that draws immigrants from further north. But the wealth is far from equally distributed, creating volatility.
South Africans have economic might and, because they are celebrated for peacefully toppling apartheid, international diplomatic stature. South Africans periodically question whether that makes them arrogant, or results in their being seen as arrogant, when they meet other Africans. They also say the long years of isolation under apartheid left ignorance on both sides.
Such soul-searching was evident earlier this year, when South African politician Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma failed to win enough votes in the African Union to unseat Gabon’s Jean Ping as chairman of the continent-wide body.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press
